July 22, 2020
Ashish Bist
Is Social capital at peril? What hinders Social capital? and can technology accustom and emulate the attribute of Social capital? How will it impact the economy of states?
The definition of socializing states that getting along with people and knowing each other, social bonding otherwise fraternizing and hobnobbing with each other and all levels of echelons, greeting to peers for eve, birthday celebration, or mourning along with someone’s sorrow grief. Meanwhile, social capital comes with the element of an interpersonal relationship like working together with comrades, building a network, sharing thoughts all under a roof without the technology or limited use of technology.
Social capital today has transformed from physically knowing each other to virtually understanding our peer thoughts, conversation, feelings and emotions.
Indeed! Social capital is in jeopardy and will never give you the essence of what physical meeting, social networks, civic engagement, norms of reciprocity, and generalised trust are. Broadly speaking, it is defined as a collective asset in the form of shared norms, values, beliefs, trust, networks, social relations, and institutions that facilitate cooperation and collective action for mutual benefits. I worry about technology being insufficient and an effective way of increasing social capital as a characteristic of technology are the antithesis of the essence of what a physical meeting can do. Nonetheless, in specific times, technology is our only avenue of communication.
Amid this pandemic, which has put the world at a standstill, our efforts to maintain normalcy is plausible “shooting bullets into the running tire”. But, that being said, we see technology aid humans to uplift and exchange converse with the dearest who can be next door or far in the hinterland. Technology succours many organizations which can work through the cloud and keep the economy flow churn.
Japanese artist, Matsuri Hino, Quotes, “No one can be a replacement for another person. That is why farewells are always difficult.” Technology cannot transcend social capital. As we humans have feelings, gesture, sentiments and touch that can never be swapped by virtual telecommunication, taking about no pupil and no tutor teaching in the classroom, no employees and no employer in the office, we leave behind The Human Touch in place of faster, more convenient communication.
As pandemic vigorously erupted in the world with only leaving behind service sector who can work with the advantage of broadband can sustain this infestation which has kept the transportation, hotels, accommodation and lodging, manufacturing, printing factory at a cessation which has will contract 3% global GDP said by IMF chief Gita Gopinath on April 23rd 2020 and erstwhile RBI governor and professor at the Chicago Booth School of Business Dr Raghuram Rajan stated the Covid19 crisis is worse than financial crises which the world witnessed, this will eventually give a heavy blow to the economy and will take time for a tailwind to give the push to the growth of the world economy.
“Contagion have engulfed the globe that has thwart the social capital which is indispensable and imperative for human being as it is customary, humans have emotions to share and cannot endure or withstand solitude, humans indeed have developed to be in solidarity”