The future of the Internet

The Pew Center for the People and the Press has a continuing Internet Project, which has spawned a host of surveys, including the Future of the Internet I 2004 and its most current look, the Future of the Internet II 2006.

The Pew Internet Project obtained the opinions of experts, leaders and stakeholders from industries such as telecommunications, entertainment and technology. Naturally, many of these experts included luminaries from Internet stalwarts like the Internet Society, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and MIT.

These experts were asked to predict the state of the Internet in 2020.

The chief findings are broken up into major areas. The first finds experts agreeing that a global low-cost network will continue to expand but will be threatened in a number of ways. The experts are suspicious that businesses anxious to maintain their current advantages may tighten control -- offering reasons for users to fight for network neutrality -- and policymakers and governments concerned with controlling the flow of information and communications will seek to exert even more control.

Although many prognosticators agree that a "flattening" of the world will lead to many new opportunities to compete globally, a significant number believe that this emerging flat world will not be pervasive enough to wipe out social inequities, which may continue to deepen.

A startling finding is that a significant minority believe that humans are in danger of losing control over our technology to that technology itself, conjuring up images of robots taking over as they did in movies like "Terminator."

Not surprisingly, many experts predict a hardening of resistance to technology, with a group of Luddites and "refuseniks" who may remain unconnected to the network and may even resort to sporadic violence and disruption. They may even form their own cultural group and live apart from the rest of the connected society.

Also not surprisingly, poll respondents predict that computer users will become increasingly engaged in virtual worlds and that indeed these users will form a kind of addiction to these virtual worlds. Many experts feel that connectivity and participation in cyberspace and its virtual worlds will have a positive effect on communications and productivity. Nonetheless, much productivity will be lost to this growing addiction.

A majority of respondents believe that English will continue to grow as the preponderant language of the Internet but will not have the effect of overwhelming other languages. In fact, they predict that Mandarin and other languages may actually expand their influence. Interestingly, many said that since languages evolve over time, they wouldn't be surprised to see the Internet speeding up this evolution.

Seventy-eight percent of respondents recommended that future investment focus on expanding network capacity and spreading knowledge of how to use technology.

In my own view, I share some of the expectations and concerns of these experts. We need to work with Congress to foster the preservation of net neutrality to prevent telecom companies from creating a tiered system of network delivery, allowing some Web sites to thrive while others struggle to survive.

We need to expand network capacity while opening up access to the network to more and more people so that they may be able to benefit. Fighting the digital divide may be the most important job of technology leaders.

E-mail Calvin Ross at calross@napanet.net.

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