1c. Primary Research: Interview someone about a technology that has changed over their lifetime, ask them what they think this technology will be like in 2040. This blog post will analyse and interpret the interview. The interview will inform task 2. Interviews can be conducted in any language but the post must be in English. Interviews must include signed consent forms uploaded to UTSOnline.

 

Interviewee: Shellee Ossen (please find a linked consent form in references below)

Interviewer: Olivia Townsend

 

In conducting this interview I decided to focus on the communications technology including telecommunications and how our world’s ability to contact all sides of the world is becoming so much easier. However, I have begun to question whether drastic communications are necessary as transportation is developing at a rapid pace and the world just seems to becoming so much smaller. I have interviewed Shellee Ossen, 56, asking questions surrounding how communication technologies have grown to change over the course of her lifetime, and in term, how she would predict the future from these changes.

 

In concluding this interview, I have interpreted these answers as being able to inform a future that sees city dwelling, all attached to their communication device and furthermore, their technology. The world is growing and become more technologically advanced, but what does that come at the cost of? Our communication skills with one another and ability to connect to the natural environment? Or the natural landscape itself? This questioned came when my interviewee mentioned,

 

“I guess maybe it will make everything seem so much closer..or perhaps it will make everyone more distant because they forget how to socialise normally or something. You know how to you can look around the train when you’re going into work, but you look at everyone and their heads are always done and looking at their phones. Same when you walk the streets. But I feel in the real distant future, our mobile devices might be us, like in some way, what if they attached then to us”.

 

In resonating on this statement, research into S. Singh from Forbes magazine and how it is argued that, “By 2020, there will be over 5 billion internet users, with over half of them accessing the internet over handheld tablet devices and 80 billion connected devices worldwide.” The world is moving closer and closer to a completely digital world, where we live vicariously through our technological devices and social media profiles. The CSIRO futures quotes, “World’s most populous countries in descending order: China (1.3 billion); India (1.2 billion); Facebook (800 million); Skype (521 million); Twitter (380 million); United States (312 million).”

 

Shellee also states,

Maybe it would be one of those negative futures, with building everywhere and trains running throughout the sky, and people walking around talking to a hologram in their arm. Maybe it’s a future that has forgotten what its like to converse like normal people or forgotten than there once was a natural world with trees and grass, because they are so caught up in the rift of the technological drive the world has pursued.

Figure 1: Townsend O. 2018, The technological future of communication, abstract digital collages to illustrate the future interviewee has described. 

Analysing this interview and various other reference points, I could argue that the more the world pursue technological superiority, the more we risk losing the love and value for face to face communication. The real question which remains for the future is, what will be more important?

 

Olivia Townsend 12908671

 

References

Singh 2014, The 10 social and tech trends that could shape the next decade, Forbes.com, accessed 24th September <https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarwantsingh/2014/05/12/the-top-10-mega-trends-of-the-decade/#4582bf9a62c3>

Hajkowicz, H. Cook, A. Littleboy 2012, Our Future World; global megatrends that will change the way we live, CSIRO Futures, 2012 revision

C.Frasier. 2010, How Advanced Can a Civilization Become?, Universe Today,  accessed 20th September, <http://www.universetoday.com/2004/04/26/how-advanced-can-a-civilization-become>