Your Internet life in 2025: Digital dream or dystopia?
Source: Hal Varian
Twenty-five years ago an obscure young computer scientist named Tim Berners-Lee proposed a way to manage information: easily accessible files on linked computers. He followed up almost two years later with a free release of code. His brainchild, the World Wide Web, has now penetrated the far corners of the globe, and wrought dramatic economic, social and cultural change.
To commemorate the 25th anniversary (technically March 12, 1989 was the exact date Berners-Lee released his paper), the Pew Research Center’s Internet Project, along with Elon University’s Imaging the Internet Center, canvassed hundreds of experts about how technology will impact daily life in 2025. Their predictions, the report said:
• A global, immersive, invisible, ambient networked computing environment
• A continued proliferation of smart sensors, cameras, software, databases and massive data centers in a world-spanning information fabric known as the Internet of Things
• Portable/wearable/implantable technologies that will allow people to “augment reality”
• Disruption of business models established in the 20th century, most notably impacting finance, entertainment, publishers of all sorts and education
• Tagging, databasing and intelligent analytical mapping of the physical and social realms
“The experts predicted the Internet will be ‘like electricity’ ― less visible, yet more deeply embedded in people’s lives for good and ill,” the report said.
The world's first web page, shown here in a 1992 copy. AFP/Getty Images
The world’s first web page, shown here in a 1992 copy. AFP/Getty Images
At the same time, those surveyed raised numerous concerns about the potential for a digital dystopia. “They worry about interpersonal ethics, surveillance, terror and crime, and the inevitable backlash as governments and industry try to adapt,” wrote Elon professor Janna Anderson, a primary author of the report.
Here are some other nuggets from notables who responded:
“The Internet will shift from the place we find cat videos to a background capability that will be a seamless part of how we live our everyday lives. We won’t think about ‘going online’ or ‘looking at the Internet’ for something ― we’ll just be online, and just look.” �C Joe Touch, director of the USC/ISI Postel Center
“The Web will be the single most foundational aspect of people’s lives in 2025. People’s companion devices ― the 2025 equivalent of today’s phones and tablets ― will be the first thing they touch in the morning and the last thing they put down to sleep. In fact, some people will go so far as to have elements of their devices embedded.” ― Stowe Boyd, lead researcher GigaOM Research
“The biggest impact on the world will be universal access to all human knowledge. The smartest person in the world currently could well be stuck behind a plow in India or China. Enabling that person ― and the millions like him or her ― will have a profound impact on the development of the human race.” ― Hal Varian, Google chief economist
| }
|