TECHNOPOLE. (221) 33 879 34 34
ORANA. (221) 33 889 93 00
DNS. (221) 33 869 82 30
ADIE Technical Coordinator
Smart City “Safe City” Project Manager of the program Smart Sénégal
Project Manager PASSANT (Structural Support Project for the Digital Territorial Development Strategy)
From an anthropological point of view, we are currently in the third “evolution” of humans and the third industrial revolution.
The first evolution corresponds to our way of evolving with the beings living in our natural ecosystem.
The second evolution, initiated since homo erectus, makes our biology in the broad sense interact with our technical inventions and their uses, which changes our genes, extremely and quickly modifies our physiology and our relationship to society. This state of affairs first led to the first industrial revolution with the creation of the steam engine which appeared in the 18th century; transforming modes of locomotion, then the second revolution that appeared at the beginning of the 20th century with the arrival of electricity and oil.
Now, we are experiencing the third evolution with digital technology which corresponds to the third industrial revolution which appeared towards the end of the 20th century with the development of New Information and Communication Technologies (NICT).
From homo faber to homo sapiens, here we are now in the era of homo numericus; a stage in the development of humanity where human activity is organized around technologies and digital tools.
This digital transformation of humans and their habits, even if we do not pay attention to it, has become a banal scene of contemporary life when individuals in a queue, in a restaurant, on public transport , or even in a group…, all have their eyes glued to their connected objects (phones, smart watches, tablets…). They read the news, play the latest trendy game or browse social networks.
Which proves that almost all of us have become Homo numericus, a permanently connected species, no longer wanting to miss anything that is happening in the world and on social networks.
Nowadays, phones and the entire app ecosystem are designed like slot machines. They monopolize our attention and act directly on our reward system. They talk about the constant updates, the alerts at any time of the day or night, the infinite nature of the social media feed on which we can spend hours and hours without ever getting to the end.
To this end, we see that mobile applications and the gamification of our environment are increasingly strengthening our behavior. As a result, the digital world has become much more powerful than television, which cannot directly influence the behavior of viewers.
Digital technology provides us, through social networks and digital platforms (e-business, e-commerce, e-marketing, games, Mobile Banking, Mobile Payment, etc.), with small, regular surges of dopamine; the hormone associated with pleasure. Moreover, the founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, understood the addictive potential of these technologies and prevented his children from using them.
This is how digital technology has invaded our lives: to communicate, learn, study, entertain, play, consult, work, buy and sell.
This digital revolution, through smartphones, social networks or even the growing Internet of Things, is therefore profoundly changing our practices, intruding both into the public sphere and into the privacy of people.
The observation of the overwhelming domination of the American GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft – GAFAM) and Chinese (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Xiaomi – BATX) platforms on a global scale must push Europeans and Africans to question more about the economic, social and environmental consequences of this hegemony as well as its political impact.
Africa must emerge from its dwarf state in the face of the power of these American and Asian giants. Hence, the question about digital trust, about the sovereignty of these large volumes of data transferred to other continents without any control.
This serious examination of reflection is far from being a questioning of Aristotle: “homo sapiens and homo numericus remain political animals”.