Digital Life in 2025: Experts See Positive Impact on Society Amid Some Signs of Trouble

Envisioning the future of the Internet and its impacts on society and the world we live in, nearly 1,500 experts agree that the Internet will become less visible even as it becomes more central and important in daily life.

And although they believe the ramifications of the Internet’s evolution on society and the larger world will be positive on balance, they also see signs of trouble.

Trends towards ubiquitous Internet access across wireless and wired networks, skyrocketing growth in sensors and machine-to-machine (M2M) network connections, and ever-greater information processing power and capacity foreshadow much of what the consensus of experts surveyed imagine the Internet will look like and the ramifications it will have across societies worldwide in coming years.

The Pew Research Internet Project and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center compiled the results of their survey of experts into the “Digital Life in 2025” report. In the coming years out to 2025, the research partners summarize, experts believe that the Internet “will become more ‘like electricity’ and produce vastly greater human and machine connectivity that will change everything from personal interactions to the decisions made by governments around the world.”

According to most of the respondents, by 2025 there will be:

• A global, immersive, invisible, ambient networked computing environment
• A continued proliferation of smart sensors, cameras, software, databases and massive data centers in a world-spanning information fabric known as the Internet of Things
• Portable/wearable/implantable technologies that will allow people to “augment reality”
• Disruption of business models established in the 20th century, most notably impacting finance, entertainment, publishers of all sorts and education
• Tagging, databasing and intelligent analytical mapping of the physical and social realms