So todays lecture featured Terry Beaubois talking about the importance of knowing how a trend originated, to predict its future. I was particularly intrigued when he presented the different trends, which included the “smartphone” and “internet of things” trends. Though he only went into specifics about a couple others, I was reminded back to a lecture I had last year. Then, I heard an industry professional lecturing on how he sees the communication network expand in the ‘foreseeable’ future, up to 2030. Linking to Terry’s advice of looking into the past, he basically said that society has moved from connecting places (from the early 1900), to connecting people, and is now beginning to embark on connecting things. It went on to exponential graphs that showed the, seemingly, ever increasing demand for data capacity (mobile, mainly) as consumers, apparently, desire to be more and more connected with everything.
Now, I am reluctant to believe this. With lifestyles increasing in speed, and the consequent rise of stress levels (not lastly due to the trend of urbanisation and the subsequent exposure to being connected), I formulated a hypothesis of my own. It seems as if the common quality of life suffers under the excess of technology; specifically of being over-connected. Its that people are less and less capable of escape from being connected and the increasingly present technology, which drives me to believe that a compromise must be approaching. Obviously, the benefit in all this connectivity is that industry and economy on global scales works quicker and more lucratively – and that is the primary driver, which, vitally, will keep the trend active and on-going. However, and as a natural balance to this increasingly connected business environment, it may be inevitable that consumers will distance themselves from “off-hours technology”. This opposes the trend of having a “networked society”. The basis to this presumption is that society will always seek to a better quality of life. That’s valid right? Anyways, food for thought …
/Hannes