It’s always difficult to predict things, especially the future, and even more the future of the internet.

That was also my first thought when I read report from Pew Research Center, The future of the Internet III. The third report is just released and this one is based on a survey of, how the internet will be in 2020. They’ve asked 1,196 people.

If you feel like chewing through the 138 pages The future of the Internet III report you are more than welcome to.

If you are a bit lazy, I’ve collected the important conclusions below:

1. The mobile device will be the primary connection tool to the internet for most people in the world in 2020.
2. The transparency of people and organizations will increase, but that will not necessarily yield more personal integrity, social tolerance, or forgiveness.
3. Voice recognition and touch user-interfaces with the internet will be more prevalent and accepted by 2020.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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 list is a strange combination of tech predictions and predictions of more sociological and political future scenarios.

Most discussions are often centered around tech predictions and seldom about future political scenarios. Is the technological progress also progress for mankind?

Those that have a cell phone and a laptop often works more and longer. You are always connected, so wouldn’t you fear that we would crash at some point if we keep this up?

Read paragraph #2 again please.

Will the technological progress in the next decade also create a better world when it comes to personal integrity, social tolerance and forgiveness?

What do you think?