Technology has served us greatly over the past decades, helping us automate time-consuming tasks and provide remote assistance in various fields. This is called technology leapfrogging, or “the adoption of advanced or state-of-the-art technology in an application area where immediate prior technology has not been adopted.” Different factors such as a country’s demographics and economic status affect this idea.
Digital acceleration in developing countries
As an example, many countries across Africa have skipped landline phones and leaped straight to mobile phones. In a short period of time, people have flocked from not owning a device to having handheld phones. This leap in technology might be due to the expensive cost of establishing infrastructures to make landlines work.
The concept of “leapfrogging” is popular in development. It suggests that lower-income countries can, as they develop, skip intermediate technologies or systems to go straight to the modern equivalent.
One example of this is the use of landlines and mobile phones.
The landline… pic.twitter.com/xhJFXWwV9G
— Our World in Data (@OurWorldInData) June 6, 2024
For areas that have a limited budget, they can only allot their resources to essentials such as food, education, and healthcare. According to Michelle W. L. Fong from Victoria University, “there is no point for developing countries to go through the fiber optic building process for their telecommunication infrastructure when they could start out with wireless telecommunications.”
Technological leap on a global scale
In rural areas in countries like the Philippines, where people have limited access to traditional banks, digital banks quickly became the norm. Coupled with the recent digital acceleration due to the pandemic, scanning a QR code rather than swiping debit or credit cards has now become prevalent as it offers convenience.
Of course, we’ve seen the global financial technology leapfrog via the current digital payment system we have today. In China, the use of credit cards has long been minimal as they went from paying cash to jumping straight into a mobile mode of payment. Instead of investing in payment terminals for card payments, they’ve integrated mobile payments into everyday transactions. Apart from convenience and adaptability, more merchants have been offering mobile transfers as a mode of payment all over the world.
EAM @DrSJaishankar said, "If you look at our cashless transactions, the UPI, I think we record the largest number of cashless transactions in the world So there's been a kind of a technology leapfrogging in the psyche of people, and that's been actually a very big difference." pic.twitter.com/PKduf36m2f
— Kishore Upadhyay (@KishoreBJP) February 19, 2023
Technology is not the only field that has enjoyed this leapfrogging phenomenon; we can see this in areas like healthcare as well. For instance, teleconsultation has become widespread as people saw its necessity during the pandemic and the convenience it offers. Through scientific and technological trials and breakthroughs, we will see more advancements as our society leapfrogs toward the future.
Photo Credit: The feature image has been done by Juliano Ferreira.
Sources: Pew Research Center / The Journalist’s Resource
