Table Of ContentFUTURE HUMAN
BEHAVIOR
THIMON DE JONG
FUTURE HUMAN
BEHAVIOR
UNDERSTANDING
WHAT PEOPLE ARE GOING
TO DO NEXT
First published 2023 by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158, USA
and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon,
OX14 4RN, UK
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor
& Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Thimon de Jong
The right of Thimon de Jong to be identifed
as author of this work has been asserted in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may
be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other
means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names
may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identifcation and
explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-
in-Publication Data
ISBN: 978-1-032-12990-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-12991-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-22714-4 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003227144
Typeset in Europa & P22 Mackinac Pro
Design by David Pino @ danki.com
Photography by Thimon de Jong
Back cover image by Bram Willems
Publisher's Note:
This book has been prepared from camera-
ready copy provided by the author.
Future Human Behavior
Introduction 9
1. Blurring Realities
1.1 From external to internal flters 16
1.2 From post-truth to post-lie 19
1.3 Post-photoshop era 22
1.4 Blurring self-identity 28
1.5 Conspiracy culture 34
1.6 Double proof for the fact checkers 37
1.7 Loving black & white in a gray world 40
2. Trust Pendulum
2.1 Implosion of trust 50
2.2 Personal & informal trust 53
2.3 Bridging trust gaps 58
2.4 The open-source attitude 64
2.5 Be a pico infuencer 68
2.6 Culture of appreciation & empathy 72
3. Te ‘You know Me’ Society
3.1 Nothing on me 82
3.2 Digital James knows you 86
3.3 I know how you feel 90
3.4 Use my data! Fast forward to the past 98
3.5 Privacy paradox 100
3.6 My data, my € $ ¥ £ 103
3.7 Black Mirror vs. Singularity University 106
Table of contents
4. Digital Balance
4.1 Hate: from technophobia to algorithm aversion 114
4.2 Love: digital addiction 118
4.3 Phubbing – ignoring people 126
4.4 The Future: counter trend, digital butlers & apathy 129
4.5 Digital balance as a luxury 132
4.6 Practicing patience in a world that’s speeding up 138
4.7 The future of human work 140
5. Future Ethics
5.1 Who’s responsible for this? 152
5.2 Jumping into the ethics vacuum 155
5.3 Ethics in the workplace 158
5.4 Moral licensing, purpose washing, and cancel culture 166
5.5 Puritanism fallacy 172
5.6 Indirect activism & nudge the nudgers 174
6. Mental Surplus
6.1 The normalizing of mental health 186
6.2 Gen Z: anxious activists 188
6.3 Mental health & technology 192
6.4 Sufering from home 198
6.5 Creating a mental surplus 204
Acknowledgements 214
References 218
Future Human Behavior
8
Introduction
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Future Human Behavior, great to have you here!
This book provides an accessible – and, I hope, engaging
– insight into my endless fascination with how people are
going to behave in the near future and what this means for
organizations.
There is obviously a degree of uncertainty to the hundred thousand hours of the most
about the future. Distant futures (2050 and experienced human pilots.
beyond) are often associated with science-
fction and crystal balls, but this book is Question: would you get on the plane?
about the near future: the next fve to ten
years. It is the future that is literally un- The vast majority of people, myself in-
folding as you are reading this, and already cluded, would not, preferring to wait for
infuencing your decisions. Understanding it the next fight. The one with human pilots.
is necessary for anyone – and any organiza- Or take a boat. Or better still, stay in Ha-
tion – that wants to be fully prepared in the waii. I have used the above question over
years ahead. the past few years as a thought exercise
with many groups of professionals. Although
Let’s start with a practical example. it is only hypothetical, it never fails to fre up
Imagine you’re reading this book at Honolulu a lively debate about decision making, trust,
airport and you’re about to board an air- future technology and ethics. Interestingly,
plane home after spending some wonderful diferent generations tend to have diferent
days on the island of Oahu. When it’s time answers and opinions.
to board, you walk up to the gate, where
you are informed by the ground staf that The follow-up question moves the per-
your plane home will fy solely on autopilot. spective from the personal to the practical:
The cockpit door has been welded shut and what could the airline and/or aviation indus-
the human pilots have been removed from try do to get people aboard their self-fying
the plane. The staf explain this is for safety airplane?
reasons. They show you statistics that this
century, more than 88% of airplane crashes This is not science-fction. The auto-
were caused by human error1 and that their pilot technology is advancing so rapidly,
autopilot software has more than a hundred the aviation industry is already considering
billion hours of fight experience, compared how it can be efectively implemented.2
9
