Hello, Homo Digitus
There’s billions of them. They’re the most advanced version of the human we’ve seen. They hardly sleep. They live to 150. Their EQ is through the roof. And they don’t say a word. Meet Homo Digitus. The evolution of the human being is a fascinating journey of development and refinement. We’ve had some big moments over the past few hundred thousand years - like when we started walking upright, lost all that body hair and learnt how to make clothes, or closer to present day when we invented things like mobile phones, reality TV or created better versions of ourselves in the metaverse.
My personal favourite has always been when we started communicating through speech; when we progressed from mono syllabic grunts to composed sentence structure, the creation of language and highly nuanced and complex communications. To be honest, I still don’t understand how it all happened. But I do marvel at it. A lot.
Which is why I had a bit of a moment when I discovered we may be on the way backward. Yes, while we continue to evolve in one direction, we may in fact be devolving in another.
Syntax is defined as the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language. You probably knew that. What you probably don’t know is our ability to understand the syntax of complex sentences is one of the most difficult language skills to acquire, as it requires the mobilization of specific parts and pathways of the brain.
And now, scientists at Inserm, Lyon and Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have made a startling discovery and correlation - that the brain areas which control certain linguistic functions, namely syntax, are also involved in controlling fine motor skills, and more specifically, the motor skills associated with use of tools.
“Could this be the start of a future where human beings no longer use speech to communicate?”
That’s right, motor training with mechanical tools is proven to improve the understanding of complex phrases.
To add more credence to this, paleo-neurobiology has also shown that the brain regions associated with language increased in our ancestors during periods when the use of tools became more widespread.
It will not come as surprise that today, the world over, we’re using tools less and less as the automated age of technology evolves around us. We simply engage in fewer activities that require motor skills. Instead we opt for lower effort alternatives, like being glued to our phones, laptops and TV’s, which sadly don’t count.
The rate of technological development to make our lives more convenient and more frictionless is increasing rapidly, and is more developed than most of us are aware. Self driving cars, gesture based interfaces and haptic technologies are already prevalent in our world, not to mention the amount of time we’ll be spending in the new virtual worlds that we’re creating.
Could this be the start of a future where human beings no longer use speech to communicate?
Have we unknowingly crossed an evolutionary moment where the need, complexity and construct of language and speech has dissipated? I guess maybe we have. Think about all those text based abbreviations, how we adapted so easily to 140 character tweets, and as for our obsession with emoji’s…
We may well be catalysing Homo Digitus - a supremely sophisticated version of the human, the biggest population of human to date, has a life expectancy of 150 and has the highest levels of productivity based on the fact that communication is intuitively delivered through emotion, not wasted through speech.
In this future, if our communication becomes entirely intuitive, passing between devices and products that connect humans, will we remove ambiguity, subjectivity and become more honest? Is a more emotionally led form of communication likely to create a better, more empathetic group of humans, or could we create more disconnection and apathy?
And whilst we’ll never live to know the answer, does this leave you thinking differently about your behaviour today and the legacy you (or your children) may leave in the future?
Time will only tell I guess, but until then, I’m got some DIY to do.
