Event Date: 17/07/2020

Location: Birmingham, UK

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR, Schwab 2016) refers to the current major industrial era since the initial Industrial Revolution. It is characterised by a fusion of technologies that are blurring the lines between the physical, digital and biological spheres.

As a father of digital natives, an early adopter and consultant in technology change, and inspired by the dialectics of progress (Wagner) I have been compelled to research and reflect on how 4IR is shaping our day to day lives, driven by the attempt to reconcile these trends with the impact it has on the well being of the people I care most about.

You will be invited to explore what is happening internally (intra-psychic), between you and other (inter-personally) and at societal and cultural level (systemic), in order to increase your awareness of what is discounted (Mellor) with regards to the prevalence of technology in our day to day life, understand how Technology is changing how we relate, and find hope in this shift.

Drawing from a number of TA models such as Script (Berne, Tosi), Relational Needs (Erskine), and contemporary thinking (Alter, Harari, Turkle) I will also propose a way of understanding how our i-dentity is shaped (Stilman, 2017), suggest implications to theory such as Strokes (Steiner), Ego and Self (Cox), and introduce ideas such as Dialectic of progress (Wagner), Dataism (Harari) and Spiral Dynamics (Salters).