The Future of the Internet

The Pew Internet & American Life Project produces reports that explore the impact of the Internet on families, communities, work and home, daily life, education, health care, and civic and political life. The basis of the reports are nationwide random digit dial telephone surveys as well as online surveys. This data collection is supplemented with research from government agencies, academia, and other expert aources. Support for the non-profit Pew Internet & American Life Project is provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts. The Project is an initiative of the Pew Research Center.

The Project has a site with general links to its research on Internet Evolution. Here ate two futures studies:

The Future of the Internet (Susannah Fox, Janna Quitney Anderson and Lee Rainie, Pew Internet and American Life Project, 1/9/2005)

A wide-ranging survey of technology leaders, scholars, industry officials, and analysts finds that most internet experts expect attacks on the network infrastructure in the coming decade as the internet becomes more embedded in everyday and commercial life. They believe the dawning of the blog era will bring radical change to the news and publishing industry and they think the internet will have the least impact on religious institutions.

The Future of the Internet II (Janna Anderson and Lee Rainie, The Pew Internet and American Life Project, 9/24/2006.)

A survey of internet leaders, activists, and analysts shows that a majority agree with predictions that by 2020:

# A low-cost global network will be thriving and creating new opportunities in a “flattening” world.
# Humans will remain in charge of technology, even as more activity is automated and “smart agents” proliferate. However, a significant 42% of survey respondents were pessimistic about humans’ ability to control the technology in the future. This significant majority agreed that dangers and dependencies will grow beyond our ability to stay in charge of technology. This was one of the major surprises in the survey.
# Virtual reality will be compelling enough to enhance worker productivity and also spawn new addiction problems.
# Tech “refuseniks” will emerge as a cultural group characterized by their choice to live off the network. Some will do this as a benign way to limit information overload, while others will commit acts of violence and terror against technology-inspired change.
# People will wittingly and unwittingly disclose more about themselves, gaining some benefits in the process even as they lose some privacy.
# English will be a universal language of global communications, but other languages will not be displaced. Indeed, many felt other languages such as Mandarin, would grow in prominence.

At the same time, there was strong dispute about those futuristic scenarios among notable numbers of 742 respondents to survey