The distinction between television, radio, and computer networks will disappear, as the computer becomes the audio, and visual controller. Your television will be a peripheral to your computer. It will receive from a cable and feed into your computer, where you will be able to watch TV from any of the terminals in the house. The terminals will consist of a monitor, probably with a slot for a floppy disk, and a keyboard. Your stereo will also be a peripheral to your computer but specialized music media will disappear as music, movies, and new forms of entertainment will be distributed digitally on normal computer disks, or through the network. Your video camera will also become a computer PERIPHERAL, and the variety of programming will increase exponentially, as private individuals will be able to create their own programming to post on the audio-visual network, for all to experience. There will be national audio-visual networks, and small private networks, similar to computer bulletin boards of today, but they will be more like personal TV stations. Those that watch will also contribute to programming, both real time, and stored. You will be able to have your computer capture any real time event you missed for storage, for you to later experiencing, editing, etc. You will be able to send audio, and audio-visual mail, but normal electronic mail will stay as many will not want to be seen or heard, especially early in the morning.
There will be some political decisions to make, as those who control the national computer networks will become very powerful, and freedom of expression issues will continue to crop up, as there will be some who call for regulation. However the power of the national networks will be leveraged by many smaller networks, which will in fact have gateways to each other.
There will be centers for the treatment of those addicted to computers. Your spouse will think it none too soon.
All the technology I have discussed already exists. The prime factor that is preventing the changes to society is the cost of the technology. As we all know,the cost of technology is always dropping. The speed that society changes is directly related to the speed that the cost of technology drops.
* A Publication of The Underground Computing Foundation (UCF) *