I agree with A Lot of these predictions, and I think much of it has high relevance to the changing social characteristics of young people that I've blogged about before. Technology is accelerating at ludicrous speed, and we're continually expected to do more in less time just to keep up. My thoughts on each prediction:
1. Communication systems will continue to change. The printing press has hung on for a looooong time, relatively.
2. All technology ends. Yup, look at file extensions. Annecdote: nearly once/week I help a student with opening a .wps (Microsoft Works) or a .pwd (Microsoft Portable) file on a WinXP machine running Office 2003.
3. Storage
will slow down. Particles can only get so small, but I'm still amazed at just how fast storage is expanding. Three computers ago, I had 500mb of hard disk space. Now I have 100gb!
4. As the planet moves away from text-based knowledge, text searching will become obsolete. Some indicators now...Flikr, Technoraiti, other social tagging projects. Granted, these are mostly text, but to me they point to larger implications for social tagging in other communication mediums.
5. Essentially, what I've been saying: we are exponentially busier consuming information, and it affects other traditional aspects of daily life.
6. Will we become a verbal society? Maybe, but not that fast. 2050?! I find that inconcievable, but hey, who knows?
7. Global information is expanding. Take a look at my post on Wikipedia Print. Perhaps when world poverty is erradicated (hah!) everyone will have access to equal amounts of information of eqaul validity. Maybe (sarcasm)
8. Global systems are the future of data transmission. Totally, look at the incredible growth of the WWW.
9. The transition from product-based society to experience-based society has begun. It is cureently in its infancy as a service-based society, but will eventually morph to experience-based. Observations of the differences between Net-Gen students and past students is a perfect indicator of this change.
10. I sure hope libraries will be full-service cultural centers! I will be on the front end of this screaming train of thought! I love the ideas presented (some of which are already in place across this country): inventing new spaces like performing arts centers, technology centers, etc.
