Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
A significant number of these experts outlined their dreams about the kinds of internet-enabled communities that could emerge by 2035. Among the traits they seek in those online spaces: activities that diminish social inequalities; groups in which participants’ main focus is on collecting, organizing, publishing and archiving useful, reality-based knowledge; healthy debates that create trusted […]
A notable share of the most hopeful respondents to this canvassing declared that in order to serve the public interest and improve digital spaces, the tech industry, government and civil society need to focus on achieving an ethical tech design that values people over profit. They said that this – combined with vastly improved individual […]
The following varied incisive and comprehensive responses represent some of the big ideas shared by a small selection of the hundreds of thought leaders who participated in this canvassing. There are two particularly extensive essays at the bottom of the chapter, one by Doc Searls about technology of the future he hopes will address some […]
This study is based on an analysis of 12,832 sermons, homilies or worship services delivered between Aug. 31 and Nov. 8, 2020, and collected from the websites of 2,146 churches found via the Google Places application programming interface (API), a tool that provides information about establishments, geographic locations or points of interest listed on Google […]
Jewish Americans are not a highly religious group, at least by traditional measures of religious observance. But many engage with Judaism in some way, whether through holidays, food choices, cultural connections or life milestones. For instance, roughly seven-in-ten Jews say they often or sometimes cook or eat traditional Jewish foods, making this the most common […]
The expert predictions reported here about the impact of digital technologies on key aspects of democracy and democratic representation and likely social and civic innovation came in response to a set of questions asked by Pew Research Center and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center in an online canvassing conducted July 3-Aug. 5, 2019. This […]
Given the challenges of survey research detailed above, it is worth considering other approaches to measuring news consumption – especially when it comes to getting news online. One possibility is so-called “passive” data, in which respondents’ online activity is recorded automatically by a computer tracker. Several vendors now offer these types of panels: They recruit […]
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 […]
Early developments in AI have been of overwhelmingly great importance and value to society. Most of the experts responding to this canvassing – both the pessimists and the optimists – expect that it will continue to provide clear benefits to humanity. Those who are hopeful argue that its advance will naturally include mitigating activities, noting […]