Read “Digital Life in 2025” (Anderson & Rainie, 2014): This is a long report so you do not need to read it all. You do need to read the Overview (online or pages 5-12 in the Complete Report that you can download by clicking on it at the top right), which introduces the survey and briefly introduces the “more hopeful” and “less hopeful” theses.

Then explore one of the more hopeful theses and one of the less hopeful theses from the summary – two items that you want to read more about – and read those sections of the report in full (the more hopeful section begins on page 23, and the less hopeful section begins on page 41). If you prefer to read most or all of the complete report, that’s great too, but this is the minimum requirement.

View Tim Berners-Lee’s TED talk, “A Magna Carta for the Web” (2014); it’s under 7 minutes long, you can view it on YouTube if you prefer, and there’s an Interactive Transcript also. You are strongly encouraged to also read or view one or more of the optional materials for this week.

You should then respond to just one of the following sets of questions in a short paragraph. (Title your post either More Hopeful or Less Hopeful.)

More Hopeful:

What is the prediction and what is exciting about this possibility in our future and in the future of the Internet...and why? What specific pitfalls or dangers accompany this new possibility?

OR

Less Hopeful:

What is the prediction and what most concerns you about this possibility with regards to our future and the future of the Internet...and why? What can/should we do to alleviate or avoid this negative outcome?

Please directly reference the “Digital Life in 2025” article (include a page number from the PDF), and perhaps also refer to the required video and other materials that you explored. Since there are many optional materials and many options in the assigned reading, make sure to acknowledge exactly what you read/viewed.

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