Is America at a Digital Turning Point?

A decade of studies by the USC Annenberg Center for the Digital Future creates a portrait of the American user of the Internet reaping the benefits of online activity, while at the same time paying a tremendous price in the form of time, privacy, and well-being.

“After 10 years of studies, we find that the strengths as well as the consequences of technology are more profound than ever,” said Jeffrey I. Cole, director of the Center for the Digital Future. “At one extreme, we see users with the ability to have constant social connection, unlimited access to information, and unprecedented buying power. At the other extreme, we find extraordinary demands on our time, major concerns about privacy and vital questions about the proliferation of technology – including a range of issues that didn’t exist 10 years ago. “We believe that America is at a major digital turning point,” said Cole. “Simply, we find tremendous benefits in online technology, but we also pay a personal price for those benefits. The question is: how high a price are we willing to pay?” The year-to-year comparisons in the Center’s Digital Future studies involve more than 100 major issues concerning the impact of online technology in the United States.

Among the highlights of the findings, along with predictions by Cole for digital directions to come, are these nine major issues:

1. Social media explodes – but most content has no credibility.
2. The meaning of “E-Nuff Already” continues to expand.
3. The desktop PC is dead; long live the tablet.
4. Work is increasingly a 24/7 experience.
5. Most print newspapers will be gone in five years.
6. Our privacy is lost.
7. The Internet’s role in the American political process is still a question.
8. The Internet will continue to create shifts in buying habits, at the expense of traditional brick-and-mortar retail.
9. What comes next?