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By Belina Hulin
Think back to 1994. Your state-of-the-art laptop connected to the Internet with a modem, your cell phone was too clunky to fit in your pocket, your camera used film and your personal databank was a nifty gadget that could substitute for a good day planner and address book.
Fast-forward to today and look around. Even if you've resisted acquiring the latest tech toys, chances are your laptop has a wireless Internet, your combined cell phone and camera are palm-sized, and your handheld PDA has enough power to manage the affairs of a small country.
Now consider the future. Specifically, consider the future of media - newspapers, magazines, radio, television and the Internet-and the content they will be disseminating in 2014. What will you be watching, hearing and reading, and how will you be getting information?
Technology as the Driver
Professional media watchers say it's becoming impossible to separate the evolution of news, entertainment and information from the evolution of technology. Technology is changing not only the way we receive content, but also the content we receive.
"The role media play in our lives is taking a quantum step forward in the next 10 years," says Watts Wacker, futurist and founder of Westport, Conn.-based FirstMatter, LLC. "Since 1850, America has been organized as a consumptive society, with most of the economy based on buy, buy, buy. Well, now we're seeing the seeds being planted for a post-information society. In that world, we'll define who we are by our media consumption rather than the items we own."
As evidence that the change has begun, Wacker points to simple social interactions. At one time, two people might have found common ground based primarily on consumption. (What kind of car do you drive? Where do you live? Where did you go to college?) Now they're more likely to bond around media habits. (Did you see Ted Koppel last night? Did you catch that episode of "Trading Spaces"?) In the future, he believes, everyone will have significant media habits.
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