A Few Years from Now, What will the Internet be like?

Back in 2014, a survey of experts by Pew Research tried to predict what the internet would look like in 2025. In summary, it stressed greater reliance on the Internet of Things, more augmented reality devices, and the end of 20th-century forms of banking and entertainment. Put another way, everything was going to be digital, hi-tech, and permanently connected to the internet – even your fridge and lightbulbs.

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Suffice it to say, not much of it has come to fruition yet, and trends in technology haven’t really changed much since Pew Research put together its survey almost a decade ago. Just look at the major inventions that visited the Consumer Electronics Show this year. These include the new Samsung Galaxy smartphone, a color-changing BMW, a massage robot, an Alienware laptop, and, ironically enough, a few record players.

It’s not so much a showcase of the world’s upcoming technologies as the prizes from Wheel of Fortune in 2018.

Internet of Things

Of course, there’s a reason for this seemingly cautious approach to new technology. For example, the Internet of Things has come to be regarded with suspicion, as the risk of hacking and other problems goes up with every new device that’s connected to the same network, while augmented reality revealed itself as a fad. Pokemon Go was a phenomenon, whereas the similar Minecraft Earth was sadly canceled shortly after release.

However, while hardware treads a worn path, the softer side of the internet is changing.

In the digital era, social media tastes are so well-defined that a user’s tendencies with and attitudes towards technology can even be used to determine a person’s age. In a quiz entitled “What is your technological age?”, the ExpressVPN website attempts to put a number to a person’s knowledge, skill, and attitudes regarding technology by asking questions about social media and device usage.

Inevitably, TikTok, Reddit, LinkedIn, and Facebook tend to have different demographics. Additionally, the world has changed quite a bit since 2014 and social media platforms, in particular, are prone to falling in and out of fashion. Undoubtedly, this is likely to cause a bit of an identity crisis by 2025, especially for brands like Facebook. The platform met with its first decline in 18 years back in February of 2022.

TikTok

There’s a sense that younger generations don’t value simple interaction as much as older ones. That’s not to say that people don’t like to talk anymore, it’s just that they prefer to have their conversations wrapped up in complex media, like imagery (Snapchat) and videos (TikTok). It’s no coincidence that both YouTube and Facebook have tried to create their own TikTok-style video formats, called Shorts and Reels, respectively.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is also trying to push the concept of the Metaverse, which ultimately boils down to a virtual reality (VR) social network. Due to the slow uptake of VR, though, it’s easy to predict that interest in this admittedly interesting direction could live and die before it ever breaks the mainstream.

Still, as far as predictions for 2025 go, expect to hear more about the metaverse and related technologies as time goes on.