Some insurance companies have started to implement the idea that it is necessary, among other parameters, to be able to control that the insured takes a minimum of 10,000 steps a day to access health-connected insurance coverage. Associations dedicated to Alzheimer's have launched a tracking bracelet to know where the patient is and to be located by their relatives at all times. The automotive sector has as one of its main attractions to capture new clients showing its high range of gadgets to prevent all types of driving incidents. Both highways and meteorology, financial entities, and airlines invest large amounts of funds to reduce risks associated with uncertainty and unforeseen events. Even the military sector dedicates its innovations to control systems, drones, and robotics to prevent crisis scenarios or deter them from occurring. We are all more inclined to be receptive to the concept of foresight than to risk. Even if the latter means having more opportunities or being the only way out to face a situation. Some people, against what human condition dictates, would even be willing not to progress, not to grow intellectually in exchange for perpetual and unreal security. The issue that is creeping into society is that it is better to prevent than to cure; a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
In an increasingly digital society, and therefore more oriented to exactness and precision, the evolution we are going to witness is the birth of a new social value: economic, medical, and professional foresight in the order of citizensThe economy of foresight has one of its great engines in the medical sector thanks to the social development of digitalization. Investment in foresight ends up achieving great profitability in the medium and long term, by allowing a reduction in the number of sick people, improving the quality of life of people suffering from chronic diseases, and making quality healthcare sustainable. Foresight is associated with education, training, and technology, but also with the construction of a cultural conception that allows forging the commitment of citizens to want to better manage their life expectancy and quality of life; to acquire awareness that foresight allows preventing or mitigating diseases and, consequently, discomfort and pain. In an increasingly digital society, and therefore more oriented to exactness and precision, the evolution we are going to witness is the birth of a new social value: economic, medical, and professional foresight in the order of citizens. A value that until now was managed by companies will end up being managed by individuals themselves.
The logic of big data based on managing the data that companies have about their clients and users to extract knowledge and consumption patterns that serve for a better exploitation of their services will also be reflected in citizens. More and more people manage their deposits from mobile applications, not so much for the ease of access to their accounts but for the convenience of having the ability to instantly and personally manage their global expenses and income. In the field of health and sports, citizens directly manage their sports performance, accessing the results provided by the data they extract from their applications on mobile phones, watches, or digital bracelets. New forms of consumption will incorporate mechanisms that will facilitate information for foresight as a purchasing factor, for example, the foreseeable expiration time of a television, a car, or any other appliance, warnings about when I should change a vehicle based on hours and kilometers, to be able to foresee how its decline will be oriented.
A few years ago, on a television program, a Catalan citizen born in Africa was asked what surprised him most about life in a European country, and he replied that it was the Catalans' obsession with meteorology and weather forecasts announced in the media. The image of a society that constantly looked at the sky for orientation, to read its future in the stars, to notice an impending storm or to claim the favor of the gods, has become a new economic field that will pose new social challenges. If it is good to foresee, it is not so good to avoid or manipulate what the future holds for us just because some data warns us not to do so.
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