The Internet's Future

Few topics inspire trips to the crystal ball like technology, although hasty predictions have often only provided future generations with quotes for cocktail party chat.

Ken Olson, founder of the Digital Equipment Corporation, remarked in 1977, for instance, that there was no reason anyone would want a computer in their home. And Harry M. Warner, a co-founder of Warner Brothers Studios, is well known for wondering, near the end of the silent-picture era, who would want to hear actors talk.

Still, as industries, courts, legislatures and other social institutions struggle to keep pace with each new technological innovation, the desire to peer around the corner is a natural one.

Last September, the Pew Internet & American Life Project, a research organization in Washington, sent out a survey asking 24 questions about the future of the Internet to a wide range of technology specialists, scholars and industry leaders. Some 1,200 responded and, as you might expect, widespread agreement is hard to find.

Some of the more cherished notions of the Internet age - that it isolates people from real-world interaction, for instance, or that people use the Web to find reinforcement for their political views and filter out opposing ones - generate deeply divided views among the specialists. Some 42 percent of respondents agreed w