| 
his web-based survey of 742 internet
stakeholders asked to assess provocative proposed
scenarios for the year 2020 found significant support for
and against each. The point of this non-random survey was
to add focused input to the ongoing conversation about
the future of the internet; respondents' written
elaborations were the most valuable result of the study.
The final statistics revealed by the quantitative survey
data show the agree/disagree split fell within 3 to 15
percentage points on five of the questions - an
indication that the complexity of issues tied to the
internet make it difficult to predict what we can expect
to see in the next 15 years.
Among the results: 57% said English will not crowd
out other languages on the internet; 58% said people who
don't participate in digital communications networks
will form their own cultural group that self-segregates
from "modern" society; 56% said while online
virtual reality will foster workplace productivity, it
will lead to serious addiction problems for many; 54%
said autonomous networked technology will not move beyond
human control by 2020. Most respondents - 78% -
identified building network capacity and the knowledge
base to help people of all nations use it as the first or
second priority for the world's policymakers and
technology industry to pursue.
Respondents were asked to agree or
disagree with each of a set of eight scenarios, and they
were given the opportunity to elaborate on their answers.
The scenarios – woven from data collected in recent
industry and research reports and predictive public
statements by leaders in science, technology, business,
and politics – were provocatively constructed and
layered with overlapping elements to spur discussion and
an illumination of issues. The agree-disagree aspects of
the survey yielded useful quantitative numbers; the
respondents' elaborations attached to each answer
yielded significant qualitative information, adding many
more predictions to the Imagining the Internet
site.
A savvy, international sample was sought for the survey.
At least one fourth of the respondents are involved with
internet leadership organizations such as the Internet
Society, the World Wide Web Consortium, the United
Nations' Working Group on Internet Governance,
Internet2 and others. About one fourth of the respondents
said they live in a part of the world other than North
America. More than half of the respondents began using
the internet prior to the days of its general acceptance
- starting their online activities in 1992 or earlier -
and 12 percent have been internet users since 1982 or
earlier. Participants include people from the Internet Society, VeriSign, BBN
Technologies, Fing, Yahoo Japan, France Telecom, the
International Telecommunication Union, Nanyang
Technological University, the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, MIT, AfriNIC, Qualcomm, Electronic Privacy
Information Center, Nortel, Disney, Harvard, RAND, IBM,
Austrian Academy of Sciences, Sony, Google, Telematica
Instituut, Habitat for Humanity, Cisco, Greenpeace,
AT&T, Jupiter Research, CNET, Microsoft, Intel, ISTOE
Online, Amazon.com, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de
Mexico, Sprint, Intuit, HP Laboratories, Centre for
Policy Modelling, ICT Strategies, Bipolar Dream, the
Benton Foundation, Semacode, Widgetwonder, Warner,
Hearst, Imaginova, CNN, Adobe Systems, Forrester Research
and many other top groups.
To see the report of results,
Much more detailed responses
are available on this site at the links below.
To read supplemental
information not contained in the official report -
including a large selection of the thousands of
fascinating written responses by internet stakeholders to
each of the survey's scenarios - look at the listing
below and click on a topic of interest to you. Included
are biographies of some respondents and the news release
explaining this project.
Survey
participants were asked to respond to the following
scenario: By 2020, worldwide network interoperability
will be perfected, allowing smooth data flow,
authentication and billing; mobile wireless
communications will be available to anyone anywhere on
the globe at an extremely low cost.
Survey participants were asked
to respond to the following scenario: In 2020,
networked communications have leveled the world into one
big political, social and economic space in which people
everywhere can meet and have verbal and visual exchanges
regularly, face-to-face, over the internet. English will
be so indispensable in communicating that it displaces
some languages.
Survey
participants were asked to respond to the following
scenario: By 2020, intelligent
agents and distributed control will cut direct human
input so completely out of some key activities such as
surveillance, security and tracking systems that
technology beyond our control will generate dangers and
dependencies that will not be recognized until it is
impossible to reverse them. We will be on a
"J-curve" of continued acceleration of
change.
Survey participants
were asked to respond to the following scenario: As
sensing, storage and communication technologies get
cheaper and better, individuals' public and private
lives will become increasingly "transparent"
globally. Everything will be more visible to everyone,
with good and bad results. Looking at the big picture -
at all of the lives affected on the planet in every way
possible - this will make the world a better place by the
year 2020. The benefits will outweigh the costs.
Survey participants were
asked to respond to the following scenario: By the year 2020, virtual reality on the
internet will come to allow more productivity from most
people in technologically-savvy communities than working
in the "real world." But the attractive nature
of virtual-reality worlds will also lead to serious
addiction problems for many, as we lose people to
alternate realities.
Survey participants
were asked to respond to the following scenario: In the current best-seller "The
World is Flat," Thomas Friedman writes that the
latest world revolution is found in the fact that the
power of the internet makes it possible for individuals
to collaborate and compete globally. By 2020, this free
flow of information will completely blur current national
boundaries as they are replaced by city-states,
corporation-based cultural groupings and/or other
geographically diverse and reconfigured human
organizations tied together by global networks.
Survey participants were
asked to respond to the following scenario: By 2020, the people left behind (many by
their own choice) by accelerating information and
communications technologies will form a new cultural
group of technology refuseniks who self-segregate from
"modern" society. Some will live mostly
"off the grid" simply to seek peace and a cure
for information overload while others will commit acts of
terror or violence in protest against
technology.
- Participants were asked to rank four
different priorities for developing the world's
information and communication technologies in order of
importance. Most selected building the capacity of
the network and passing along technological knowledge to
those currently not online.
|
|
