Forced to go digital

The pandemic forced us to go digital as the new way of life. Work from home has long been suggested as a means of alleviating traffic jams that make the daily lives of most employees hellish, but bosses and HR managers insisted it could not be done.

Then came COVID-19. Now most of the tech companies in Silicon Valley have announced WFH will be a new norm beyond the pandemic. Here, many employers are saying that some form of WFH will be around even after the virus is gone.

Fintech will also come of age. I am not a total Luddite, but I could not get myself to trust online banking. My wife and kids swear by it. I did not find a need for this technology.

The lockdown almost forced me to succumb to the digital wallet concept, but my bank branch is just 600 steps away from where I live, so the urgency disappeared as soon as they resumed having daily operations.

Contact tracing for the pandemic is a mission made for technology. I had to register for my Pasig Pass and learned about the QR code. Now I don’t have to fill up those tracing forms before entering establishments. I just show my Pasig Pass QR code.

Indeed, there are some digital applications that gained prominence during the pandemic that I eagerly await here in the Philippines. An article last week in The Washington Post cited a few.

Telemedicine is on top of my list. I have postponed visiting my regular doctors for a year now because of fear of contracting COVID in their clinics next to the hospital. They reassure me it is safe and that they have separated the COVID side of the facility from everyone else, but the infection risk is still there.

I am hoping that if telemedicine will be practiced here, I will not have to waste a lot of time waiting to see my doctor in a hallway with a dozen other patients… and possibly get infected by them.

The Post article noted that “doctors have been talking for decades about replacing some in-person patient visits with virtual house calls. When the pandemic shut non-emergency clinics, it finally happened.

“As of May, McKinsey estimates 46 percent of American consumers were using telehealth to replace canceled healthcare visits. Between mid-March and the summer, over 9 million Medicare beneficiaries used telemedicine, a more than 5,000 percent increase from the prior three months…

“Patients liked the convenience and the access to care, particularly in rural areas. Many doctors, too, report there’s a lot they can do just by seeing and talking to patients on a screen…”

Satisfaction was also said to be higher for some telemedicine visits than in-person visits. Doctors can check on you every day for a couple of minutes, which is unbelievably helpful because you can tell if somebody’s looking better or worse if the doctor sees you every day.

But the Post article conceded that “there’s also going to be resistance from traditional health providers that rely on in-person — and high-margin — tests like X-rays to turn a profit. They’re not entirely wrong: Good medical care requires long-term continuity you can’t get just by opening an app whenever you feel ill.”

The pandemic also forced us to do online classes or virtual schooling. That is obviously a disaster for us due to our bad internet connections and coverage.

But even in the US where internet access isn’t as bad a problem, virtual pandemic schooling was a disappointment.

My daughter who teaches grade two in Orange County, California observed that virtual schooling widens the digital divide… the good students from economically better off families benefit from it, but the struggling pupils from lower income families struggle even more.

She has to go to her classroom to teach before computers in an empty room. She couldn’t do it from her home because her husband also teaches virtually and her two sons are also doing their virtual classes in their two- bedroom townhouse.

But the big reality, the Post pointed out is “How many hours can you expect young children to sit in front of a screen? The tech took away the fun parts of school, like recess and seeing friends, and just left the academic parts.

“So are the kids all right? A study by McKinsey & Co. published in December estimates that going to a remote school in the spring set White students back by one to three months in math, while students of color lost three to five months…

“Districts report a surge in failing grades; sometimes students are just not turning in assignments.

“When the pandemic is behind us, almost nobody wants young children to continue to go to school primarily through screens…

“Most of all, teachers and parents say virtual education reminded us of everything school actually provides, including meals, day care and social development. Adapting to how students feel is a technology problem, too.”

Back here at home, let us be honest and admit that our students specially those in public schools, are a year delayed in their education. DepEd is trying its best to do something it is not geared to do.

Online teaching supplements, but cannot supplant in-person teaching.

The biggest digital test last year was not due to a virus but because of a peeved Duterte. ABS-CBN was forced to go all digital as its franchise renewal was denied.

ABS-CBN had long invested in digital technology and was ready for a shift, but the audience was not. Still, the network is doing its heroic best to survive on a digital mode.

Ironically, the success of ABS-CBN going digital depends on the success of a Duterte project to expand broadband reach all over the country. In five years or so, entertainment and news will be mostly digital as we are now seeing in the US.

Being first in digital, ABS-CBN will once more be the entertainment and news leader, if they survive the next few years.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco