Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
As the pandemic unfolded in spring 2020, many Americans saw their lives swiftly reshaped by stay-at-home orders, school closures and the onset of remote work. From video calls with isolating or sick family members to holiday celebrations by video call amid canceled travel plans, social distancing recommendations altered major life events and elements of daily life alike. Technology bridged physical distance as restrictions […]
The next two sections of this report include hundreds of additional comments from experts, organized under the six most common themes in these experts’ responses. The remarks of many of the experts already quoted in the earlier pages of this report also tie into these themes. This section covers the three themes that emerged among […]
The following respondents wrote contributions that bring together a holistic look at the issues at hand, trying to place them in human and historical context. Peter B. Reiner, co-founder of the National Core for Neuroethics at the University of British Columbia, wrote, “It is challenging to make plausible predictions about the impact that digital spaces […]
The following selection of responses covers some of the more panoramic and incisive big ideas shared by several dozen of the 862 thought leaders participating in this canvassing. This is the fork in the road where people can choose a better future – or a downward path Mark Davis, associate professor of media and communications […]
Experts who doubt significant improvement will be made in the digital democratic sphere anytime soon say the key factor underlying the currently concerning challenges of online discourse is the ways in which people, with their varied and complicated motivations and behaviors, use and abuse the digital spaces that are built for them. Those who think […]
Most respondents to this canvassing wrote brief reactions to this research question. However, a number of them wrote multilayered responses in a longer essay format. This essay section of the report is quite lengthy, so first we offer a sampler of a some of these essayists’ comments. What follows is the full set of essays […]