I’m going to try and imagine a typical day in my life now, with what I think the technology of 2058 will be like. So first a typical day would start off with me waking up in my automatic bed. As soon as I get out of the bed, the bed will automatically change the sheets and make itself. I would then get in the shower; go about my usual routine and as soon as I get out of the shower, I step out into a full size dryer that dries my hair and body in seconds. Next I get dressed, pulling my clothes from a closet that picks my clothes for me, so I don’t have to worry about what I’m going to wear. I would then prepare myself for class by turning on my laptop, connecting to the web and logging on to the class website. My class would consist of an interactive setting through video and voice interaction. The professor would lead the class from any one location that was convenient for him and of course the student would attend class from a location that was convenient for them, their dorm room for example. This idea is based on the research paper that I did for class about education and technology. There will still be professors in the classrooms, there won’t be computers completely running the show, at least not in the next 50 years. As for reading materials for class, all forms of academic literature would be available on line, so text book would not be necessary. However I think students would still have to pay for access to the material on line. Hard copies of books would still be available in libraries, but seldom used. I think this would be the same for all reading materials actually, newspapers, magazines, and things of the sort will all be easily accessible on line. Furthermore as part of my daily routine I would have a little robot that would perform tedious tasks for me. Such things as cleaning my room, doing laundry and cooking would all be done by my special little robot. Hopefully this wouldn’t end up making people extremely lazy.
Imagining my present job now as an office assistant in the student activities office fifty years from now, I think that I would be able to do that work at home, that and just about any other job from my home. I envision everybody having a computer and any work that needed to be done could be sent to the employee via e-mail or fax (yeah everyone has a fax machine too) and they would send the completed work back the employer. Of course not all work could be done from the comfort of ones own home. I imagine places such as hospitals and doctors offices would operate much the same as they do now, despite advances in medicine, the format would remain the same. Perhaps the cure for cancer or HIV/AIDS or some other seemingly incurable diseases will be developed within the next fifty years. Physical interaction would be limited and would only occur when it was desired or necessary. But this could seriously affect a person’s social life. It is hard to picture going through a day without interacting with people through most hours of the day. Phone conversations would all be done with video calling, on cell phones, of course everyone has a cell phone. This is something I first witnessed in Japan, video calls on cell phones. Although not all calls were answered in this way I imagine developments and improvements being made on this idea and every call would be done in this way. Moreover I imagine that all devices are voice activated. I know presently some phones have voice activation features, “call home” you say and the phone replies, “calling home” this is a neat tool to have, so I think that it would be applied to more things such as TVs, radios and other things of the sort. For example, “TV on” or “lights off”.
As far as transportation I do not think that people will be required to drive in fifty years. Cars and other modes of transportation will be pre programmed to go to any destination in the continental United States or in whatever country that car is in. For example the car has software that can be uploaded to the vehicle. Every turn, every stop light, every street sign would be accounted for and the car would have knowledge of all this information. The vehicle would also be equipped with special sensors that would slow down or break immediately if something darted into its way. These “smart cars” would take the strain off of driving. Furthermore getting gas would not be a problem because these cars would not run on gas. Rather they would use solar power during the day and electric power during the night. This would be a much more environmentally friendly way of getting around. However I’m not really sure if this idea would work with air planes, I’m not confident in making a prediction about the future of air planes.
Making predictions about the future is difficult. Yet based on technological advances that have come since the year 1958 it is some what possible to gauge where advances in technology might leave people in the next fifty years. Nothing too dramatic at first, yet slow, gradual changes overtime will develop into the dramatic changes from hundreds of years ago. Everything seems to become easier and more convenient for people, requiring less work on the part of the person and more dependency being put on technology doing things for us. I think for the most part the basic style and structure of things will remain the same, however it will be the convenience that these advances can provide that will make the noticeable differences.
