COVID-19 Reminds Us Not to Take Tech for Granted
There are vital roles that everyone – from individuals to businesses – can play during the COVID-19 crisis. Many have already risen to the challenge and rightfully grabbed headlines. Meanwhile, there are others that we may have taken for granted, like Internet and technology companies, but their contributions are unmistakable. They have provided crucial services and lifelines for all of us in isolation, and they’ve done so even though they’ve long received many lawmakers’ ire.
Prior to the coronavirus outbreak, officials at all levels of government sought to burden Internet technology companies with regulations and/or break up their businesses. However, in many ways, these companies have made life in quarantine more bearable, helped prevent the economy from coming to a complete standstill, and have even provided a foundation for fighting COVID-19. Government regulators should remember this and understand that had their plans for tech companies come to fruition, these firms wouldn’t have had the capacity to adequately provide their important services.
We have heard over and over again that social distancing is one of the best tools we have to combat the coronavirus, but humans are social creatures used to interaction and a constant flow of information. In any other era, the solitude of extreme social distancing would have been even more jarring and devastating than it currently is, but modern Americans enjoy a few benefits that lessen the pain of quarantine.
With social media platforms, we can stay in touch, see photos, know what’s going on in our family and friend’s lives, and social media can even connect us to news sources. Search engines serve as a conduit to endless sources of information––both taking our minds off of the pandemic but also providing us with valuable news about it––while simultaneously removing dangerous misinformation.
Even in a pandemic, Americans can go shopping and purchase necessities and luxuries without ever leaving the couch. Using app-based services, we can have meals from our favorite restaurants brought to our doors, groceries delivered to our homes, and Amazon’s massive marketplace allows us to buy just about anything we want.
When so-called nonessential employees and other workers were directed to stay home, technology made it possible for many of us to keep working. Video conferencing software enables face-to-face meetings; various platforms help teams collaborate in real time; and smartphones allow us to receive work messages from almost anywhere.
Indeed, Internet technologies are playing a profound role in the global effort to stop COVID-19. Putting aside many companies’ direct philanthropic efforts, communication technologies enable telemedicine, and they connect healthcare professionals around the world, allowing them to share data in real-time and effectively respond to the outbreak.
Google Trends has become a research platform for epidemiologists; Microsoft is offering massive computing power for modeling the ACE2 receptor that the coronavirus targets; and Amazon’s logistics permit the company to focus on delivering essential goods and serving critical health needs.
Most poignant are the many stories of families and friends who have been present, via a computer or phone screen, with their ailing loved ones as they passed away from COVID-19. As devastating as these stories are—and they are devastating—it must be remembered that without technology, these last moments could not have been shared at all.
To say that these innovations make us fully prepared for a pandemic would be absurd, but we are certainly better able to handle a world in isolation because of the Internet. Given all of this, it is astounding to realize that not long-ago some federal and state government officials fixed their sights on tech companies with the intention of either breaking them up or limiting their abilities to innovate.
Had nanny-state government officials gotten their way (and unfortunately, they still might), then they would be the architects of another kind of disaster. Lawmakers are not equipped to pass laws at the rate of Internet technology development and often choose solutions not suited to future problems.
Many proposed regulations would be destructive on large and small companies alike. In fact, burgeoning firms and startups continually fight off rules and red tape that would likely shut them down. These tech businesses have clearly proven their merit in this crisis. In fact, in these strange times, the Internet and technology companies play an important role that needs to be encouraged, not cut down.
