Is Emotional Intelligence Dead in this Digital World?

Written by Bill Evans, Managing Director

Not so long ago we had a revolution caused by the internet and emails. Smart guys in Silicon Valley seized this opportunity and gave us Facebook, Amazon, Airbnb and Uber, to name just a few super apps.

Within a short time even email will be obsolete, over taken by messaging of various types. Facebook now drives more traffic to media sites and we’ve seen the strength of just this with recent political campaigns in France, UK and USA.

The younger generation are now engaged through this medium and have engaged the personalities smart enough to tap into this new world.

IOT technology brings the next opportunity for the ‘smart thumbs’ to develop new products. Even my dog has an IOT device feeding back his activity to my smart phone.

Soon we will be swamped with Virtual Reality (VR) and a day out shopping in a mall will be a thing of the past.  TV’s will be redundant. Can you imagine a VR café!!

So where is this all leading us to? A world where everything is automated, old fashioned values are a thing of the past. When in the VR world, there is no need to interact with anybody.

Is emotional intelligence dead? I get so frustrated with businesses being run by emails. How many do we get per day? Oh, check out your Facebook account, your salesman is sharing a photo of his latest meal!

The younger generation below the millennials only know social media. They are not developing skills that help them with understanding feeling, thoughts, smells and true vision. I scream ‘pick up the phone’ and talk to them. They do not know how to talk and engage in conversations. When meeting people, the skills of reading body language are disappearing fast. Understanding another person’s concerns cannot be revealed in an app, or maybe in time someone will develop one.

Emotional intelligence can be taught, can be enhanced and should be realised as a skill that could not disappear. Empathy comes from emotional intelligence.

Let’s rally round and ensure the digital world does not stifle the parts of our brain used for developing all of our sixth senses.

Pick up the phone, go see someone, talk to them, ask questions, create empathy – all which can be done without an app!

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