The Pew Internet & American Life Project and Elon University recently released their lastest study, The Future of the Internet III.
From December 28, 2007 through March 3, 2008, some 578 Internet activists, builders, and commentators responded to survey scenarios about the effect of the Internet on social, political, and economic life in the year 2020. An additional 618 stakeholders also participated in the study, for a total of 1,196 participants who shared their views.
Here’s an excerpt of prediction highlights:
- The mobile device will be the primary connection tool to the internet for most people in the world in 2020.
- The transparency of people and organizations will increase, but that will not necessarily yield more personal integrity, social tolerance, or forgiveness.
- Voice recognition and touch user-interfaces with the internet will be more prevalent and accepted by 2020.
- Those working to enforce intellectual property law and copyright protection will remain in a continuing arms race, with the crackers who will find ways to copy and share content without payment.
- The divisions between personal time and work time and between physical and virtual reality will be further erased for everyone who is connected, and the results will be mixed in their impact on basic social relations.
- Next-generation engineering of the network to improve the current internet architecture is more likely than an effort to rebuild the architecture from scratch.
For more information on this study’s findings including views and predictions from various individuals and groups, checkout the following sites:
- Summary of the findings
- Full report
- Imagining the Internet (More views & predictions)
