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[Download this news release in pdf format]
Jan. 2005 - The workplace,
family life, education and many other foundations of
society will undergo fundamental changes due to advances
in Internet technology over the next decade. That is the
forecast of nearly 1,300 leading technology experts and
scholars who responded to a survey by researchers at the
Pew Internet & American Life Project and Elon
University. The survey results, released Jan. 9, 2005,
provide a vision of a networked, digital future that
enhances many peoples' lives, but also has some
distressing implications.
The survey included many scientists and engineers who
created the first Internet architecture a decade ago,
along with current technology leaders in corporations,
media, government and higher education. Among the
respondents were people affiliated with IBM, AOL,
Microsoft, Intel, Google, Internet2 and Oracle; Harvard,
MIT and Yale; and the Federal Communications Commission,
FBI, U.S. Census Bureau, Social Security Administration
and U.S. Department of State.
The survey was developed based on a retrospective study
conceived by Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet
Project, that recorded predictions first made in the
early 1990s when network technology was in its infancy.
More than 4,000 of those early predictions have been
chronicled and posted on a Web site
(www.elon.edu/predictions) by Janna Quitney Anderson,
assistant professor of communications, and students in
Elon's School of Communications.
With those early predictions in mind, respondents to
this survey were asked to forecast the next decade of
Internet development. Among the findings are the
following:- Two-thirds of the experts
predict at least one devastating attack on network
information infrastructure or the country's power
grid in the next 10 years. Some experts believe
serious attacks will become a regular part of
life.
- 59 percent of these experts
predict increased government and business
surveillance as computing devices are embedded in
appliances, cars, phones and even
clothing.
- 57 percent of these experts
predict more virtual classes in formal education,
with students grouped by interests and skills, rather
than by age.
- 56 percent of these experts
predict changes in family dynamics and a blurring of
the boundaries between work and leisure as
telecommuting and home-schooling expand.
- 54 percent look for a new age of
creativity in which people use the Internet to
collaborate with others and share music, art and
literature.
- 53 percent predict that all
video, audio, print and voice communications will
stream to coordinating computers in homes and offices
via the Internet.
The Internet experts believe the
news and publishing industries will undergo the most
dramatic changes over the next decade, with new
"digital media titans" forming connections
across media, entertainment, advertising and commerce.
They also predict major changes ahead for educational
institutions, workplaces and health care institutions.
Fewer changes are predicted for religious
organizations.
While some experts look for the development of a
"more thoughtful" Internet, others are more
pessimistic, calling the increasing online data
"drivel," diluting the quality of information
that is available.
Rainie said respondents' answers display a conflict
between their hopes for the Internet's positive
potential and their reality-based opinions of what can
really be accomplished in the next 10 years.
"Experts are both in awe and in despair about the
state of the Internet. They celebrate search technology,
peer-to-peer networks, and blogs; they deplore
institutions that have been slow to change."
Anderson said the predictions are valuable because they
allow society to be better prepared for the future.
"The big-picture Internet issues of the next decade,
as foreseen by these experts, include: positive and
negative changes in the family dynamic; a conflict
between our desire for privacy/security and our desire
for the convenience of information sharing on networked
devices; and a conflict between our desire to have access
to all information everywhere and our desire to simplify
our lives and avoid being inundated with
information."
Most survey respondents predict expansion of high-speed
Internet service with vastly more people and information
online. They say that will impact families in many
ways.
"Many workers now are 'on duty' 24/7 -
responding to emails, alerts, blackberries, and cell
phones, no matter where they may be," wrote survey
respondent Gary Bachula of Internet 2. "For the
office, this may increase productivity. For the home and
family, this adds to stress and strain. But that is
because, today, this "extra" duty usually comes
on top of a regular 40-to-50-hour stint in the office. In
the future, it will be possible for people to do their
work from home, from the beach, from the back yard - and
it will be theoretically possible to enhance home and
family that way."
Michael Botein, director of the Communications Media
Center at New York Law School, wrote, "Families,
friends and colleagues hang together much more through
the Internet than through the lost art of written
communication or voice - as seen by the fact that my
adult children answer e-mails immediately and phone
messages in a week (if at all)."
While the experts were generally impressed with the
speed and scope of change that the Internet has brought,
there were some areas of disappointment. Many survey
respondents said they were surprised at the slow rate of
change in educational institutions, despite predictions a
decade ago that schools would be quick to embrace change.
Many experts also said health care is a decade behind
other industries in adopting new information technology,
with the greatest changes ahead in areas such as online
patient records and consultation via the Internet with
healthcare professionals.
Privacy remains a concern for sophisticated Internet
users as new convenience technologies expand the ability
to track users and their activities. Some experts predict
increasing numbers of arrests based on surveillance by
government, while others are concerned about "social
surveillance" by businesses that track habits of
their customers.
The non-scientific online Internet experts survey was
conducted from Sept. 20 to Nov. 1, 2004, by Princeton
Survey Research Associates. Full results of the survey,
including engaging quotes from hundreds of respondents
can be found on the Web at
www.elon.edu/predictions.
Visitors to the site are invited to share their own
visions for the future of the Internet. The site
currently contains more than 500 predictions from
Netizens from around the world.
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