Pew Report predicts state of the Internet in 2020

A new report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project makes several predictions about technology and its role in the year 2020.

The report was compiled from a survey of hundreds of leading Internet activists, builders and commentators.

Some of the key findings are:

• 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.
• 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.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project "explores the impact of the Internet on children, families, communities, the work place, schools, health care and civic/political life."

The Future of the Internet III (summary)

The Future of the Internet III (full report)

Pew Internet and American Life Project