Irish Examiner view: Let’s learn to control, not serve, tech

A survey involving 3,800 primary school children reports that 12% of 8-12-year-olds spend 61 days online every year

US president Donald Trump said he will not take part in a virtual debate with Joe Biden. Picture: Alex Brandon/AP

Great, unexpected, and almost incomprehensible change can become the norm so quickly that it is not recognised as change — or at least the depth of that change is not fully appreciated. We may not recognise how disruptive gently, gently change is until it's too late. It happens quietly and all of a sudden our world is very different.

It's just 60 years since America's first presidential TV debate was held on September 26, 1960. John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon faced each other in Chicago but television was not kind to Nixon, it showed him sweaty and shifty. Kennedy's charm won the day and the goalposts around political campaigning were moved forever. The pandemic has moved them again.