Online shopping to be called a disorder?

By 2024, the World Health Organisation (WHO) will identify online shopping as an addictive disorder, as millions abuse digital commerce and encounter financial stress, predicts research firm Gartner. Consumer spending via digital commerce platforms will continue to grow over 10 per cent year over year through 2022, according to its top strategic predictions for 2020 and beyond.

The ease of online shopping will cause financial stress for millions of people, as online retailers increasingly use artificial intelligence (AI) and personalisation to effectively target consumers and prompt them to spend discretionary income that they do not have, it said.

The resulting debt and personal bankruptcies will cause depression and other health concerns caused by stress, which is capturing the attention of the WHO, Gartner said. By 2023, the number of people with disabilities employed will triple due to AI and emerging technologies, reducing barriers to access, Gartner predicted.

By 2024, AI identification of emotions will influence more than half of the online advertisements you see. Artificial emotional intelligence (AEI) is the next frontier for AI development, especially for companies hoping to detect emotions in order to influence buying decisions.

By 2025, 50 per cent of people with a smartphone but without a bank account will use a mobile-accessible cryptocurrency account, and by 2023, a self-regulating association for oversight of AI and machine learning designers will be established in at least four of the G7 countries, Gartner predicted.

By 2023, individual activities will be tracked digitally by an “Internet of Behaviour” to influence benefit and service eligibility for 40 per cent of people worldwide. Through facial recognition, location tracking and big data, organisations are starting to monitor individual behaviour and link that behaviour to other digital actions, like buying a train ticket, the firm said.