From this feature:
Mark Carrigan, senior lecturer in education at the University of Manchester, says that efficiency gains from better digital technology always carry a risk for interaction between actual humans. The key question, says Carrigan, is “whether those gains can be used to free up people to interact in richer and more engaging ways, or whether they’re used to process more people at a lower cost. Unfortunately it’s almost always the latter.” In other words, do supermarkets use self-service tills so bosses can free up staff to help us in the aisles? Or are they used to save that supermarket time and money? Swipe left for the answer. As Carrigan points out, none of this is the fault of touchscreens per se – it’s all about how organisations decide to use the technology.
Mark Carrigan 