Imagining The Internet – A History and Forecast

Useful and interesting survey-based research carried out every couple of years by Elon University and the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

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Here are summaries of the prediction surveys and anonymous quotes supplied by participants:

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– "The world will get a nervous system, and that is a big deal."

– "Global distribution of information and knowledge over the internet at lower and lower cost will continue to lift the world community for generations to come."

– "Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy. The Net will wear away institutions that have forgotten how to sound human."

– "In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes in their own reality show."

– "You’ll get more information, but much of it will be contradictory."

– "Entirely new technologies and societal coping mechanisms will need to be developed to process data into information (and who knows if wisdom will follow)."

– "Losses from internet-related crime and terror will exceed losses from all natural disasters."

– "There will be a move toward networked individualism … in work, neighborhoods, kinship, and even households."

– "Government will be forced to become increasingly transparent, accessible over the Net, and almost impenetrable if you’re not on the Net."

– "The greatest changes will occur in the arena of trust and human relations."

– "New methods of securing the true from the false will emerge. The source will become more important than the message."

– "The digital divide will grow ever deeper."

– "(We will see) the rise of the sovereignty of the individual (and) the rise in impact of groups of individuals"

– "Peddlers of wares and services, hucksters of all descriptions, and general riff-raff will make these larger social networks somewhat less than useful."

– "Knowledge (will be) knowable by impetus of the individual… A new role for teachers will emerge."

– "Transportation will be refined through massive substitution of communication. The current flight to cities will be reversed."

– "We’ll probably see more attempts at control of the internet, both by business and governments around the world."

– "Connection and automatic sharing of contact information … will foster digital tribes and a stronger sense of ‘family.’"

– "Children will grow up with the knowledge that their every move is being watched. This is a recipe for killing the kind of independent thinking that creates innovation."

– "Creativity may bloom but that does not mean it will be seen or appreciated by all."

– "Virtual communities of interest will exercise episodic political power … like a swarm of angry bees!"

– "The internet is like graffiti, only it can be targeted to the right niche."

– "Enhanced communications and access to information are on the evolutionary path to freedom."

– "It is better to be actively, thoughtfully and humanly adapting technology than to be creating inertia to resist it."

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