Where the Internet of Things Could Take Society by 2025

by Tanya Roscorla,  Center for Digital Education

Picture this: A world flooded with a sea of data from every connected device on the planet — devices found in and on human bodies, in homes, around communities, in products, and in the natural environment. And these devices on the Internet of Things are sharing information constantly with the promise of making people’s lives better.

But the government, corporations and criminals can all tap into these data streams and use what they find for evil, if they so choose. And that tension comes through loud and clear in a report on the Internet of Things that includes opinions from more than 1,600 experts.

The Pew Research Center Internet Project and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center on Wednesday released a report predicting how the Internet of Things (IoT) will shape society through 2025.  Read the report.

Among the more than 1,600 experts cited, 83 percent said the IoT would have “widespread and beneficial effects on the everyday lives of the public by 2025.” The report says both the IoT and wearable computing will advance significantly over the next 11 years, but warns privacy concerns will rise due to a surge in the volume of data gathered by connected devices and resulting growth of profiling.

Also by 2025, most people will not take advantage of progress in information interfaces by connecting their brains to the IoT, the report says. Experts believe the IoT will have complex, unintended consequences, and could increase the digital divide. In addition, the report predicts responses to the IoT will alter human relationships.

Although the popularity of Google Glass over the next decade remains to be seen, the idea of a device that overlays information onto the physical world will remain, says the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s David Clark. People will use coordinated appliances in conjunction with the scannable physical world, says ACM president Vint Cerf, who cautions that these appliances will be vulnerable to hostile takeover.  Read the report