In honour of the recent establishment of the Institute of Social Futures, Lancaster University, I revisited my PhD thesis: Versions of the Future in Relation to Mobile Technologies, awarded in July 2004!
Twelve years on, it is immense fun to read an ‘old’ future imagined by the young people who participated in my focus groups with much humour and hubris at the beginning of the heady decade that was the 2000s. These youngsters will be hitting their thirties right about now.
They imagined a future where mobile phones had video cameras and (pre-social media as we know it now) ‘life recording’ devices that would capture all one’s memories for posterity.
Far more prescient than I had ever imagined!
Enjoy.
Karenza