How the first quarter of this century changed the world

In 1969, a Kenyan schoolteacher tried to explain what a telephone looked like to a class of wide-eyed students. Without one anywhere nearby, he compared it to a bell. Not the kind you swing, but the metal type that is struck with a rod.

Dr Rebecca Ng'ang'a, a social studies lecturer at Daystar University, was among those primary schoolchildren letting their imagination conceive what they couldn't physically see.

By the turn of the century, she would proudly own a mobile phone, albeit a version far removed from the sleek gadgets that are now omnipresent.

"It was huge, so I would shove it into my handbag," she tells TRT Afrika. "Do you know it would ring in class and disturb nobody? Because the noise was unfamiliar. My students didn't know what meaning to assign to that noise."

Fast-forward to 2020 and Ng'ang'a admits to not knowing anybody who doesn't own a mobile phone. "Even my uncle, who was born in 1928, has one," she exclaims.

The transformation Ng'ang'a describes captures how technology has reshaped life over the past quarter of a century.

The rise of smartphones, powerful computers and high-speed internet has fundamentally altered how people communicate, do business and connect across cultures, bringing with them both remarkable opportunities and new challenges.

Ng'ang'a reflects on the words of Canadian philosopher Herbert Marshall McLuhan that "the medium is the message", pointing out how evolving media technologies impact us, change our perceptions, and ultimately alter our world.

McLuhan, who coined the term "global village", reportedly foresaw the World Wide Web almost 30 years before it was invented.

Three generations

"With the first layer of the internet or what we call Web 1.0, people could only read what was on the internet. You could not change or interact with it. It was restrictive, like read-only,"  Roselyne Wanjiru, an economist specialising in cryptocurrency, tells TRT Afrika.

This was in the late 1960s.

"The second layer of the internet brought in the components of reading, writing and video," she explains.

Media then became interactive, a shift that took hold between 2000 and 2015. Social media platforms allowed people to connect across vast distances, shrinking the world in practical terms.

"With the second layer of internet, the growth of social media platforms allowed people to connect in a way that distance practically shrunk within conversation. Now, people could have business partners in China, Russia, Australia or any other country," says Wanjiru.

Time zones, not distance, became just about the only consideration when arranging meetings.

This brought disruptions across nearly every sector. In sales and marketing, for example, digital platforms became essential. As Wanjiru notes, without them, "you are completely invisible".

Companies that once relied on billboards to grab eyeballs could now target specific audiences and demographics as and when needed.

"Data has brought companies into this hyper-specificity in a manner that they are no longer shooting in the dark," explains Wanjiru.

By 2015, the world would wake up to Web.03. "I term this the 'money layer'," says Wanjiru, whose research focuses on the future of economy and payments.

"This is the aspect of decentralised applications of blockchain technology. This is where cryptocurrency sits."

However, before crypto emerged, digital technologies facilitated paperless transactions, a financial convenience that allows individuals to pay for products over money transfer apps, without necessarily having the physical cash.

This is particularly evident in Kenya, where official data shows that more than 70% of the country's 50 million people rely on a mobile money transfer technology, M-Pesa, to send and receive money.

Constant evolution

Wanjiru regards the internet as a social square where ideas are exchanged at lightning speed. She likens its evolution to a recipe.

"Let's say, all we ever knew was boiling rice. Then somebody decides we are going to add cinnamon or other spices, plus chicken or beef, and they come up with pilau or biryani. Suddenly, people realise, we have had rice this whole time, can we have biryani now?" says Wanjiru.

And just as more additions and flavour add richness to plain rice, “the internet is not supposed to be plain,” Wanjiru notes.. More components continue to be added, transforming the world with every new element.

"When we look back where we came from to where we are now, what we are seeing is literally newness every year, every moment, every day," says Ng'ang'a. "That's why I say, we don't go to school to get certificates; we are students for life."

The pandemic in 2020 caused yet more massive disruptions, and a new normal emerged.

"Personally, I couldn't imagine teaching people I am not seeing," recalls Ng'ang'a. "My students called and said, 'Madam, we don't want to miss classes, please.' Today, I wouldn't want to teach differently," she says.

Wanjiru, a crypto expert, recalls an article she read that referred to most people spending their lives within a radius of five to ten kilometres. "With the advent of the internet, people began to increase that radius. We have evolved to be global rather than local."

Fighting the downside

Although the internet has shrunk distance and brought opportunities within reach, it has also introduced challenges.

On the financial front, it has enabled sophisticated crime, where online fraudsters target unsuspecting users through identity theft, facilitating remote access to their victims' funds and wealth portfolio.

Financial institutions, such as commercial banks, have, however, mitigated this threat by introducing multiple-layer identification mechanisms.

On the social aspect, Wanjiru rues that people have lost what she terms "intentionality". Now, with almost everything available at the click of a button, there is a danger of being over-dependent on technology.

Ng'ang'a couldn't agree more. "The mind must be encouraged to think, else we will be brain dead," she warns. "Machines are quietly replacing people."

So, where does this all lead to?  "I have no idea of what is going to come," says Ng'ang'a, advising that the only way to cope with constant change is by remaining learners.

"My students taught me how to use Zoom, but we still have this odd idea that the teacher is the one who knows. No, whoever knows, please teach us,” the university lecturer says adding: “Humility is necessary for us to remain in learning mode."

Financial technology expert Wanjiru believes that the next 25 years will see some people breaking away from the constant stream of interaction to structured forms of doing the same.

"We have already gone from news by appointment to news at any time to now people saying, 'No, I don't want to watch news all day'," she tells TRT Afrika.

"It's like the internet hits a peak and then we find balance. Instead of having this life where you are constantly connected, constantly watching, constantly engaging, we will have breaks from the ebb and flow of social interaction."

As a finance expert studying psychology, Wanjiru notes that "human behaviour is predictable".

"If people are tired of one thing, they will walk away from it, you can bet on that. Even the messaging around AI that it will take away jobs will shift to, 'How can AI make my work easier?' Developers will have to think in a human-centric way rather than a platform-centric one," she says.