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the future of the internet iv experts and stakeholders discuss predictions about the future of the internet update correction february 2010 janna anderson lee rainie director view report online http pewinternet.org/reports/2010/future-of-the-internet-iv.aspx pew internet american life project an initiative of the pew research center 1615 l st nw ­ suite 700 washington d.c 20036 202-419-4500 pewinternet.org

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1615 l st nw ­ suite 700 washington d.c 20036 202-419-4500 pewinternet.org contents overview survey method part 1 a review of responses to a tension pair about whether google will make people stupid part 2 a review of responses to a tension pair about the impact of the internet on reading writing and the rendering of knowledge part 3 a review of responses to a tension pair about how takeoff technologies will emerge in the future part 4 a review of responses to a tension pair about the evolution of the architecture and structure of the internet will the internet still be dominated by the end-to-end principle part 5 a review of responses to a tension pair about the future of anonymity online about 3 5 8 19 26 33 44 52 overview overview of responses in an online survey of 895 technology stakeholders and critics expectations of social political and economic change by 2020 fielded by the pew research center s internet american life project and elon university s imagining the internet center » google won t make us stupid 76 of these experts agreed with the statement by 2020 people s use of the internet has enhanced human intelligence as people are pew internet american life project the future of the internet iv 2 allowed unprecedented access to more information they become smarter and make better choices nicholas carr was wrong google does not make us stupid some of the

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about the future of anonymity online about 52 overview overview of responses in an online survey of 895 technology stakeholders and critics expectations of social political and economic change by 2020 fielded by the pew research center s internet american life project and elon university s imagining the internet center » google won t make us stupid 76 of these experts agreed with the statement by 2020 people s use of the internet has enhanced human intelligence as people are allowed unprecedented access to more information they become smarter and make better choices nicholas carr was wrong google does not make us stupid some of the best answers are in part 1 of this report » reading writing and the rendering of knowledge will be improved 65 agreed with the statement by 2020 it will be clear that the internet has enhanced and improved reading writing and the rendering of knowledge still 32 of the respondents expressed concerns that by 2020 it will be clear that the internet has diminished and endangered reading writing and the rendering of knowledge some of the best answers are in part 2 of this report » innovation will continue to catch us by surprise 80 of the experts agreed that the hot gadgets and applications that will capture the imaginations of users in 2020 will often come `out of the blue some of the best answers are in part 3 of this report » respondents hope information will flow relatively freely online though there will be flashpoints over control of the internet concerns over control of the internet were expressed in answers to a question about the end-to-end principle 61 responded that the internet will remain as its founders envisioned however many who pew internet american life project the future of the internet iv 3 agreed with the statement that most disagreements over the way information flows online will be resolved in favor of a minimum number of restrictions also noted that

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there will be flashpoints over control of the internet concerns over control of the internet were expressed in answers to a question about the end-to-end principle 61 responded that the internet will remain as its founders envisioned however many who agreed with the statement that most disagreements over the way information flows online will be resolved in favor of a minimum number of restrictions also noted that their response was a hope and not necessarily their true expectation 33 chose to agree with the statement that the internet will mostly become a technology where intermediary institutions that control the architecture and content will be successful in gaining the right to manage information and the method by which people access it some of the best answers are in part 4 of this report » anonymous online activity will be challenged though a modest majority still think it will possible in 2020 there more of a split verdict among the expert respondents about the fate on online anonymity some 55 agreed that internet users will still be able to communicate anonymously while 41 agreed that by 2020 anonymous online activity is sharply curtailed some of the best answers are in part 5 of this report survey method `tension pairs were designed to provoke detailed elaborations this is the fourth future of the internet survey conducted by the pew internet american life project and elon university s imagining the internet center the surveys are conducted through online questionnaires to which a selected group of experts and the highly engaged internet public have been invited to respond the surveys present potential-future scenarios to which respondents react with their expectations based on current knowledge and attitudes you can view detailed results from the first three surveys here http pewinternet.org/topics/future-of-the-internet.aspx and http elon.edu/e-web/predictions/expertsurveys/default.xhtml expanded results are published in the future of the internet series published by cambria press respondents to the future of the internet iv survey fielded from dec 2 2009 to jan pew internet american life project 11 2010 were asked to consider the future of the internet-connected world between the future of the internet iv 4 now and 2020 and the likely innovation that will occur they were asked to assess 10

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of this report survey method `tension pairs were designed to provoke detailed elaborations this is the fourth future of the internet survey conducted by the pew internet american life project and elon university s imagining the internet center the surveys are conducted through online questionnaires to which a selected group of experts and the highly engaged internet public have been invited to respond the surveys present potential-future scenarios to which respondents react with their expectations based on current knowledge and attitudes you can view detailed results from the first three surveys here http pewinternet.org/topics/future-of-the-internet.aspx and http elon.edu/e-web/predictions/expertsurveys/default.xhtml expanded results are published in the future of the internet series published by cambria press respondents to the future of the internet iv survey fielded from dec 2 2009 to jan 11 2010 were asked to consider the future of the internet-connected world between now and 2020 and the likely innovation that will occur they were asked to assess 10 different tension pairs ­ each pair offering two different 2020 scenarios with the same overall theme and opposite outcomes ­ and they were asked to select the one most likely choice of two statements the tension pairs and their alternative outcomes were constructed to reflect previous statements about the likely evolution of the internet they were reviewed and edited by the pew internet advisory board please note that this survey is primarily focused on eliciting focused observations on the likely impact and influence of the internet ­ not on the respondents choices from the pairs of predictive statements many times when respondents voted for one scenario over another they responded in their elaboration that both outcomes are likely to a degree or that an outcome not offered would be their true choice survey participants were informed that it is likely you will struggle with most or all of the choices and some may be impossible to decide we hope that will inspire you to write responses that will pew internet american life project explain your answer and illuminate important issues the future of the internet iv 5 experts were located in two ways first several thousand were identified in an extensive

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were informed that it is likely you will struggle with most or all of the choices and some may be impossible to decide we hope that will inspire you to write responses that will explain your answer and illuminate important issues experts were located in two ways first several thousand were identified in an extensive canvassing of scholarly government and business documents from the period 19901995 to see who had ventured predictions about the future impact of the internet several hundred of them participated in the first three surveys conducted by pew internet and elon university and they were recontacted for this survey second expert participants were hand-picked due to their positions as stakeholders in the development of the internet here are some of the respondents clay shirky esther dyson doc searls nicholas carr susan crawford david clark jamais cascio peter norvig craig newmark hal varian howard rheingold andreas kluth jeff jarvis andy oram david sifry marc rotenberg john pike andrew nachison anthony townsend ethan zuckerman stephen downes rebecca mackinnon jim warren sandra brahman seth finkelstein jerry berman and stewart baker here are some of the institutions in which respondents work or have affiliations google microsoft cisco systems yahoo intel ibm hewlett-packard ericsson research nokia new york times o reilly media thomson reuters wired magazine the economist magazine nbc rand corporation verizon communications linden lab institute for the future british telecom qwest communications raytheon adobe meetup craigslist ask.com intuit mitre corporation department of defense department of state federal communications commission department of health and human services centers for disease control and prevention social security administration general services administration british ofcom world wide web consortium national geographic society benton foundation linux foundation association of internet researchers internet2 internet society santa fe institute yankee group harvard university mit pew internet american life project yale university georgetown university oxford internet internet iv 6 the future of the institute princeton university carnegie-mellon university university of pennsylvania university of california-berkeley columbia university university of

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foundation association of internet researchers internet2 internet society santa fe institute yankee group harvard university mit yale university georgetown university oxford internet institute princeton university carnegie-mellon university university of pennsylvania university of california-berkeley columbia university university of southern california cornell university university of north carolina purdue university duke university syracuse university new york university northwestern university ohio university ,georgia institute of technology florida state university university of kentucky university of texas university of maryland university of kansas university of illinois boston college university of tulsa university of minnesota arizona state michigan state university university of california-irvine george mason university university of utah ball state university baylor university university of massachusetts-amberst university of georgia williams college and university of florida while many respondents are at the pinnacle of internet leadership some of the survey respondents are working in the trenches of building the web most of the people in this latter segment of responders came to the survey by invitation because they are on the email list of the pew internet american life project or are otherwise known to the project they are not necessarily opinion leaders for their industries or well-known futurists but it is striking how much their views were distributed in ways that paralleled those who are celebrated in the technology field a wide range of opinion from experts organizations and interested institutions was sought this survey should not be taken as a representative canvassing of internet experts by design this survey was an opt in self-selecting effort that process does not yield a random representative sample the quantitative results are based on a nonrandom online sample of 895 internet experts and other internet users recruited by email invitation twitter or facebook since the data are based on a non-random sample a margin of error cannot be computed and results are not projectable to any population other than the respondents in this sample many of the respondents are internet veterans ­ 50 have been using the internet since pew internet american with 11 percent 1992 or earlier life project the future of the actively involved online since 1982 or earlier when internet iv 7 asked for their primary area of internet interest 15 of the survey participants identified themselves as research scientists 14 as business leaders or entrepreneurs 12 as

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population other than the respondents in this sample many of the respondents are internet veterans ­ 50 have been using the internet since 1992 or earlier with 11 percent actively involved online since 1982 or earlier when asked for their primary area of internet interest 15 of the survey participants identified themselves as research scientists 14 as business leaders or entrepreneurs 12 as consultants or futurists 12 as authors editors or journalists 9 as technology developers or administrators 7 as advocates or activist users 3 as pioneers or originators 2 as legislators politicians or lawyers and 25 percent specified their primary area of interest as other results are divided into a column for invited experts only and a column that combines experts with general public the answers these respondents gave to the questions are given in two columns the first column covers the answers of 371 longtime experts who have regularly participated in these surveys the second column covers the answers of all the respondents including the 524 who were recruited by other experts or by their association with the pew internet project interestingly there is not great variance between the smaller and bigger pools of respondents part 1 a review of responses to a tension pair about whether google will make people stupid the future of intelligence pew internet american life project the future of the internet iv 8 eminent tech scholar and analyst nicholas carr wrote a provocative cover story for the

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bigger pools of respondents part 1 a review of responses to a tension pair about whether google will make people stupid the future of intelligence eminent tech scholar and analyst nicholas carr wrote a provocative cover story for the atlantic monthly magazine in the summer of 2008 1 with the cover line is google making us stupid he argued that the ease of online searching and distractions of browsing through the web were possibly limiting his capacity to concentrate i m not thinking the way i used to he wrote in part because he is becoming a skimming browsing reader rather than a deep and engaged reader the kind of deep reading that a sequence of printed pages promotes is valuable not just for the knowledge we acquire from the author s words but for the intellectual vibrations those words set off within our own minds in the quiet spaces opened up by the sustained undistracted reading of a book or by any other act of contemplation for that matter we make our own associations draw our own inferences and analogies foster our own ideas if we lose those quiet spaces or fill them up with `content we will sacrifice something important not only in our selves but in our culture jamais cascio an affiliate at the institute for the future and senior fellow at the institute for ethics project pew internet american life and emerging technologies challenged carr in a subsequent article the future of the internet iv 9 in the atlantic monthly http www.theatlantic.com/doc/200907/intelligence cascio made the case that the array of problems facing humanity the end of the fossil-fuel

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not only in our selves but in our culture jamais cascio an affiliate at the institute for the future and senior fellow at the institute for ethics and emerging technologies challenged carr in a subsequent article in the atlantic monthly http www.theatlantic.com/doc/200907/intelligence cascio made the case that the array of problems facing humanity the end of the fossil-fuel era the fragility of the global food web growing population density and the spread of pandemics among others ­ will force us to get smarter if we are to survive most people don t realize that this process is already under way he wrote in fact it s happening all around us across the full spectrum of how we understand intelligence it s visible in the hive mind of the internet in the powerful tools for simulation and visualization that are jump-starting new scientific disciplines and in the development of drugs that some people myself included have discovered let them study harder focus better and stay awake longer with full clarity he argued that while the proliferation of technology and media can challenge humans capacity to concentrate there were signs that we are developing fluid intelligence the ability to find meaning in confusion and solve new problems independent of acquired knowledge he also expressed hope that techies will develop tools to help people find and assess information smartly with that as backdrop respondents were asked to explain their answer to the tension pair statements and share your view of the internet s influence on the future of human intelligence in 2020 ­ what is likely to stay the same and what will be different in the way human intellect evolves what follows is a selection of the hundreds of written elaborations and some of the recurring themes in those answers nicholas carr and google staffers have their say i feel compelled to agree with myself but i would add that the net s effect on our intellectual lives will not be measured simply by average iq scores what the net does is shift the emphasis of our intelligence away from what might be called a meditative or contemplative intelligence and more toward what might be called a utilitarian intelligence the price of zipping among lots of bits of information is a loss of depth in our thinking ­ nicholas carr pew internet american lifethat when my conclusion is project the of essays internet iv 10 the only information on a topic is a handfulfuture of theor books the best strategy is to read these works with total concentration but when you have access to thousands of articles blogs videos and people with expertise on the topic,

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intelligence the price of zipping among lots of bits of information is a loss of depth in our thinking ­ nicholas carr my conclusion is that when the only information on a topic is a handful of essays or books the best strategy is to read these works with total concentration but when you have access to thousands of articles blogs videos and people with expertise on the topic a good strategy is to skim first to get an overview skimming and concentrating can and should coexist i would also like to say that carr has it mostly backwards when he says that google is built on the principles of taylorism [the institution of time-management and worker-activity standards in industrial settings taylorism shifts responsibility from worker to management institutes a standard method for each job and selects workers with skills unique for a specific job google does the opposite shifting responsibility from management to the worker encouraging creativity in each job and encouraging workers to shift among many different roles in their career carr is of course right that google thrives on understanding data but making sense of data both for google internally and for its users is not like building the same artifact over and over on an assembly line rather it requires creativity a mix of broad and deep knowledge and a host of connections to other people that is what google is trying to facilitate ­ peter norvig google research director google will make us more informed the smartest person in the world could well be behind a plow in china or india providing universal access to information will allow such people to realize their full potential providing benefits to the entire world ­ hal varian google chief economist the resources of the internet and search engines will shift cognitive capacities we won t have to remember as much but we ll have to think harder and have better critical thinking and analytical skills less time devoted to memorization gives people more time to master those new skills google allows us to be more creative in approaching problems and more integrative in our thinking we spend less time trying to recall and more time generating solutions ­ paul jones ibiblio university of north carolina ­ chapel hill pew internet american life project the future of the internet iv 11 google will make us stupid and intelligent at the same time in the future we will live in a transparent 3d mobile media cloud that surrounds us everywhere in this cloud we

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our thinking we spend less time trying to recall and more time generating solutions ­ paul jones ibiblio university of north carolina ­ chapel hill google will make us stupid and intelligent at the same time in the future we will live in a transparent 3d mobile media cloud that surrounds us everywhere in this cloud we will use intelligent machines to whom we delegate both simple and complex tasks therefore we will loose the skills we needed in the old days e.g reading paper maps while driving a car but we will gain the skill to make better choices e.g knowing to choose the mortgage that is best for you instead of best for the bank all in all i think the gains outweigh the losses marcel bullinga dutch futurist at futurecheck.com i think that certain tasks will be offloaded to google or other internet services rather than performed in the mind especially remembering minor details but really that a role that paper has taken over many centuries did gutenberg make us stupid on the other hand the internet is likely to be front-and-centre in any developments related to improvements in neuroscience and human cognition research ­ dean bubley wireless industry consultant what the internet here subsumed tongue-in-cheek under google does is to support some parts of human intelligence such as analysis by replacing other parts such as memory thus people will be more intelligent about say the logistics of moving around a geography because google will remember the facts and relationships of various locations on their behalf people will be better able to compare the revolutions of 1848 and 1789 because google will remind them of all the details as needed this is the continuation ad infinitum of the process launched by abacuses and calculators we have become more stupid by losing our arithmetic skills but more intelligent at evaluating numbers ­ andreas kluth writer economist magazine it s a mistake to treat intelligence as an undifferentiated whole no doubt we will become worse at doing some things more stupid requiring rote memory of information that is now available though google but with this capacity freed we may and probably will be capable of more advanced integration and evaluation of information more intelligent ­ stephen downes national research council pew internet american life project canada the future of the internet iv 12 the new learning system more informal perhaps than formal will eventually win

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and probably will be capable of more advanced integration and evaluation of information more intelligent ­ stephen downes national research council canada the new learning system more informal perhaps than formal will eventually win since we must use technology to cause everyone to learn more more economically and faster if everyone is to be economically productive and prosperous maintaining the status quo will only continue the existing win/lose society that we have with those who can learn in present school structure doing ok while more and more students drop out learn less and fail to find a productive niche in the future ­ ed lyell former member of the colorado state board of education and telecommunication advisory commission the question is flawed google will make intelligence different as carr himself suggests plato argued that reading and writing would make us stupid and from the perspective of a preliterate he was correct holding in your head information that is easily discoverable on google will no longer be a mark of intelligence but a side-show act being able to quickly and effectively discover information and solve problems rather than do it in your head will be the metric we use ­ alex halavais vice president association of internet researchers what google does do is simply to enable us to shift certain tasks to the network we no longer need to rote-learn certain seldomly-used facts the periodic table the post code of ballarat if they re only a search away for example that s problematic of course we put an awful amount of trust in places such as wikipedia where such information is stored and in search engines like google through which we retrieve it but it doesn t make us stupid any more than having access to a library or in fact access to writing makes us stupid that said i don t know that the reverse is true either google and the net also don t automatically make us smarter by 2020 we will have even more access to even more information using even more sophisticated search and retrieval tools but how smartly we can make use of this potential depends on whether our media literacies and capacities have caught up too ­ axel bruns associate professor queensland university of technology my ability to do mental pew internet american life projectarithmetic is worse than my grandfathers because i grew up in iv 13 the future of the internet an era with pervasive personal calculators i am not stupid compared to my grandfather but i believe the development of my brain has been changed by the

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and capacities have caught up too ­ axel bruns associate professor queensland university of technology my ability to do mental arithmetic is worse than my grandfathers because i grew up in an era with pervasive personal calculators i am not stupid compared to my grandfather but i believe the development of my brain has been changed by the availability of technology the same will happen or is happening as a result of the googleization of knowledge people are becoming used to bite sized chunks of information that are compiled and sorted by an algorithm this must be having an impact on our brains but it is too simplistic to say that we are becoming stupid as a result of google ­ robert acklund australian national university we become adept at using useful tools and hence perfect new skills other skills may diminish i agree with carr that we may on the average become less patient less willing to read through a long linear text but we may also become more adept at dealing with multiple factors note that i said `less patient which is not the same as `lower iq i suspect that emotional and personality changes will probably more marked than `intelligence changes ­ larry press california state university dominguz hills technology isn t the problem here it is people s inherent character traits the internet and search engines just enable people to be more of what they already are if they are motivated to learn and shrewd they will use new tools to explore in exciting new ways if they are lazy or incapable of concentrating they will find new ways to be distracted and goof off the question is all about people s choices if we value introspection as a road to insight if we believe that long experience with issues contributes to good judgment on those issues if we in short want knowledge that search engines don t give us we ll maintain our depth of thinking and google will only enhance it there is a trend of course toward instant analysis and knee-jerk responses to events that degrades a lot of writing and discussion we can t blame search engines for that what search engines do is provide more information which we can use either to become dilettantes carr s worry or to bolster our knowledge around the edges and do fact-checking while we rely mostly on information we ve gained in more robust ways for our core analyses google frees pew internet american life project the time we used to spend the future of the our pulling together the last 10 of facts we need to complete internet iv 14 research i read carr s article when the atlantic first published it but i used a web search to pull it back up and review it before writing this response google is my friend

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provide more information which we can use either to become dilettantes carr s worry or to bolster our knowledge around the edges and do fact-checking while we rely mostly on information we ve gained in more robust ways for our core analyses google frees the time we used to spend pulling together the last 10 of facts we need to complete our research i read carr s article when the atlantic first published it but i used a web search to pull it back up and review it before writing this response google is my friend ­ andy oram editor and blogger o reilly media for people who are readers and who are willing to explore new sources and new arguments we can only be made better by the kinds of searches we will be able to do of course the kind of googled future that i am concerned about is the one in which my every desire is anticipated and my every fear avoided by my guardian google even then i might not be stupid just not terribly interesting ­ oscar gandy emeritus professor university of pennsylvania i don t think having access to information can ever make anyone stupider i don t think an adult s iq can be influenced much either way by reading anything and i would guess that smart people will use the internet for smart things and stupid people will use it for stupid things in the same way that smart people read literature and stupid people read crap fiction on the whole having easy access to more information will make society as a group smarter though ­ sandra kelly market researcher 3m corporation the story of humankind is that of work substitution and human enhancement the neolithic revolution brought the substitution of some human physical work by animal work the industrial revolution brought more substitution of human physical work by machine work the digital revolution is implying a significant substitution of human brain work by computers and icts in general whenever a substitution has taken place men have been able to focus on more qualitative tasks entering a virtuous cycle the more qualitative the tasks the more his intelligence develops and the more intelligent he gets more qualitative tasks he can perform as obesity might be the side-effect of physical work substitution my machines mental laziness can become the watermark of mental work substitution by computers thus having a negative effect instead of a pew internet american life project positive one ­ ismael peña-lopez lecturer at the open university of catalonia school of law and political science the future of the internet iv 15

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