In the past 15 years, widespread internet access has transformed nearly every aspect of how Americans live.
In that time span, Facebook has changed the way we connect with one another, Uber has made it easier for us to get from place to place, and YouTube has brought a seemingly infinite number of entertainment possibilities to our fingertips.
But what about the next 15 years? How will the internet change from what it is today? And more importantly, how will new advancements make our world a fundamentally different place than it was before?
The Onward, Internet project, developed by the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, is asking people to submit their ideas for what they'd like to see next on the internet. Some of these suggestions are a little fantastical ("more unicorns"!), while others are more practical ("protect my bank codes better").
We did our own research on what experts predict the internet will look like 5, 10, and 15 years from now.
In general, we can expect the internet to continue expanding to places it has never been accessible before: far-off, rural locations around the world, inside our household appliances, maybe even on Mars.
Here's what we learned:
In 5 years ...
Five years from now, everyone in the world will be able to use the internet, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt predicted in 2013.
Here in the US, 87% of the adult population is already online, up from 66% in 2005.
In the coming years, nonprofit organizations and internet service providers will work to sign up the remaining 13% of Americans through programs like Connect2Compete, a partnership between the nonprofit EveryoneOn and several major cable companies that allows low-income families to purchase broadband service at a reduced rate.
And while we think of the internet today as something we access from computing devices like laptops and smartphones, in five years, billions of household items from washing machines to door locks will have internet connectivity.
For instance, your refrigerator might have sensors on it that can figure out when you're running low on milk, and that can then use the internet to send an alert to your smartphone. Pretty cool, right?
The technology research firm Gartner expects the so-called "Internet of Things" to grow from the fewer than 1 billion connected objects that existed in 2009 to more than 25 billion in 2020.
Meanwhile, the investment bank Morgan Stanley estimates that number wind up being as high as 75 billion.
In 10 years ...
People will be so connected via the internet that they will be able to create new digital "nations" with other people who share their interests, early internet pioneer David Hughes predicted in a report published by the Pew Research Center's Internet Project.
As a result, Hughes says, traditional countries could have less influence over the people within their geographic boundaries.
University of Michigan associate professor Nicole Ellison predicts that all this connectivity will also make the world a more empathetic place.
Ellison tells the Pew Research Center that the internet will make people living in the developed world more aware of how difficult it is for people living elsewhere to find food, health care, clean water, and education.
As a result, she says, people in developed nations will be inspired to work even harder to help solve these problems.
In 15 years ...
Learning will be easier than ever, predicts Matt Mead, the chief investment officer of Nesta, a UK charity focused on innovation.
In a report published by the accounting firm Grant Thornton, Mead writes that educators will use widespread internet access to teach students more effectively.
He says that teachers will be able to use virtual schools to give students the information they need, and that machine-learning technology will help teachers personalize the lessons on these websites based on students' strengths and weaknesses.
And Earth might not be the only place where the internet will make it easier to obtain information. According to io9's George Dvorsky, there very well could be internet access on Mars by 2030.
While that might sound like something out of science fiction, NASA is planning for interplanetary internet connections right now. In a 2012 test, International Space Station commander Sunita Williams controlled a robot located on the ground in Germany while she was in space.
You can submit your own suggestion for the future of the internet at the Onward, Internet site.
This post is sponsored by the NCTA.
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