The fear factor

"Fear" (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) by Isaías Campbell

The world is changing at a breathtaking pace and it's so easy to feel overwhelmed. Driving this change are several global megatrends: globalisation, digitalisation, environmental change, demographic change (aging population) and urbanisation. We are all familiar with these developments but an excellent blog post by Cecilia Bjursell adds an extra dimension. If you can read Swedish I can thoroughly recommend the post (Den 6:e megatrenden - well worth a read even via Google Translate). She raises an overriding trend that could outweigh all the others put together, namely fear. Fear of all the other megatrends is leading to a backlash that is threatening to derail all the trend analyses of the last few years. We have so far assumed that society is in general developing in a linear and predictable manner towards greater freedom and equality but fear of change is now twisting that linear development into something extremely volatile. Of course, fear is a natural reaction to change and healthy skepticism is essential, but all too often this fear of change leads to destructive reactions. The danger is that fear will become the overriding megatrend.

The fear factor is very evident in education. Digitalisation offers exciting new opportunities for providing flexible and accessible education for all, enabling global collaboration and making scientific research available to all. However it also demands that institutions, teachers and learners change the way they work and take on new roles. These changes are radical ad demand retraining and rethinking. In the face of this many people feel insecure, inadequate and threatened. Many base their fear on misconceptions about the changes they face. Many feel helpless and overwhelmed and instead of looking for support or ways to cope with the change simply dig a trench and defend their position. Institutions may see digitalisation as a Pandora's box and prefer to keep the lid tightly locked rather than face the horde of demons that need to be addressed if the lid is opened even slightly.

The most important issue here is to recognise fear as a major trend. Technology brings so many opportunities to create a more open, tolerant and educated world. That world may be possible to achieve but first we need to work on reducing the fear factor. Exaggerated tech-optimism tends to provoke a similarly exaggerated negative response. The backlash is all too evident. How can we respond to people's fear of change, how can we reduce the threat of change and can we change the rhetoric from threats of major disruption to the promise of natural evolution instead?