This report is a collaborative effort based on the input and analysis of the following individuals. Find related reports at Imagining the Digital Future.

Primary researchers  

Lee Rainie, director, Elon University’s Imagining the Digital Future Center and scholar-in-residence

Janna Anderson, founding director, Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center and professor of communications 

Editorial, web and graphic design

Dan Anderson, special assistant to the president

Public opinion poll consulting

Jason Husser, director, Elon University Poll

Media relations

Owen Covington, assistant vice president for strategic communications and media relations

Acknowledgements

We are extremely thankful to the following individuals who crafted detailed qualitative contributions to this report:

Stephen Abram, principal at Lighthouse Consulting; Greg Adamson, vice president of the IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology; Stephan Adelson, longtime leading digital health consultant; Walid Al-Saqaf, associate professor of media technology and journalism at Södertörn University in Huddinge, Sweden; Micah Altman, social and information scientist at MIT; Lene Rachel Andersen, economist, author, futurist and philosopher at Nordic Bildung; Joscha Bach, fellow at the Thistledown Foundation, previously principal AI engineer at Intel Labs; Richard Barke, professor of public policy at Georgia Tech; Avi Bar-Zeev, president, XR Guild and XR pioneer who has developed the tech at Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google; Victoria Baines, global expert in online trust, safety and cybersecurity; David R. Barnhizer, professor of law emeritus and co-author of “The Artificial Intelligence Contagion”; John Battelle, owner of Battelle Media; Matthew Belge, user-experience design lead and senior product designer at Imprivata; Richard Bennett, founder of the High-Tech Forum; Christine Boese, vice president and lead user-experience designer and researcher at JPMorgan Chase financial services; Henry Brady, professor of political science and public policy at the University of California-Berkeley; David Bray, principal at LeadDoAdapt Ventures; Tim Bray, founder and principal at Textuality Services, previously a vice president at Amazon; Axel Bruns, professor of digital media and chief investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society at Queensland University of Technology; Nir Buras, principal at the Classic Planning Institute, an urban design consultancy based in Washington, DC; Dennis Bushnell, a futurist and chief scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center; Jamais Cascio, distinguished fellow at the Institute for the Future; Vint Cerf, Internet Hall of Fame member and vice president at Google; Mary Chayko, professor of communication and information at Rutgers University; Carol Chetkovich, professor emerita of public policy at Mills College; Barry K. Chudakov, founder and principal at Sertain Research; Chuck Cosson, director of privacy and data security at T-Mobile; Olivier Crépin-Leblond, founder and board member of the European Dialogue on Internet Governance; Willie Currie, a longtime global communications policy expert based in Africa; Sara (Meg) Davis, professor of digital Health and Rights at the University of Warwick; Buroshiva Dasgupta, director of the Center for Media Studies and Research at Sister Nivedita University in Kolkata, India; Rosalie Day, co-founder at Blomma; Judith Donath, fellow, Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center, and founder, Sociable Media Group, MIT Media Lab; Michael G. Dyer, professor emeritus of computer science, UCLA; Esther Dyson, Internet pioneer, journalist and founder of Wellville; Anriette Esterhuysen, Internet Hall of Fame member from South Africa; Devin Fidler, foresight strategist and founder of Rethinkery; Seth Finkelstein, principal at Finkelstein Consulting and Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award winner; Charlie Firestone, president of the Rose Bowl Institute, previously executive director of The Aspen Institute; Tracey Follows, CEO of Futuremade; Juan Ortiz Freuler, a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society; Andrea Romaoli Garcia, an international human rights lawyer from Brazil; Danny Gillane, an information science professional; Jerome C. Glenn, co-founder and CEO of The Millennium Project; Marina Gorbis, executive director of the Institute for the Future; Garth Graham, long-time leader of Telecommunities Canada; Jonathan Grudin, affiliate professor, University of Washington, recently principal researcher in the Adaptive Systems and Interaction Group at Microsoft; Michael Haines, CEO of VANZI, a 3-D company based in Australia; Alexander Halavais, associate professor and director of the Social Data Science master’s program at Arizona State University; John C. Havens, executive director of the IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems; Seth Herd, a futurist and computational cognitive neuroscience researcher now working on human-AI alignment; Jason Hong, a professor at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University; Terri Horton, founder of FuturePath; Stephan G. Humer, sociologist and computer scientist at Fresenius University of Applied Sciences in Berlin; Alan S. Inouye, director for information technology policy, American Library Association; Ravi Iyer, research director at the University of Southern California’s Center for Ethical Leadership and Decision-Making; Francisco J. Jariego, futurist, author and professor at the National Distance Education University of Spain; Klaus Bruhn Jensen, professor of communications at the University of Copenhagen and author of “The People’s Internet”; Paul Jones, professor emeritus of information science, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; Frank Kaufmann, president, Twelve Gates Foundation; Tim Kelly, Kenya-based lead ICT policy specialist at the World Bank; Jim Kennedy, a professional media and AI strategist; Michael Kleeman, senior fellow, University of California-San Diego (previously with Boston Consulting and Sprint); Andrew K. Koch, CEO of the Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education; Jonathan Kolber, futurist and member of TechCast Global; David J. Krieger, director of the Institute for Communication and Leadership, Switzerland; Friedrich Krotz, fellow at the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research, University of Bremen, Germany; Chris Labash, associate professor of communication and innovation at Carnegie Mellon University; Thomas Laudal, associate professor of business at the University of Stavanger (Norway) Business School; Lawrence Lannom, vice president at the Corporation for National Research Initiatives; Kevin T. Leicht, professor and head of the department of sociology at the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign; Sam Lehman-Wilzig, professor at Bar-Ilan University, Israel, and author of “Virtuality and Humanity”; Peter Levine, associate dean of academic affairs and professor of citizenship and public affairs at Tufts University; Leah A. Lievrouw, professor of information studies at the University of California, Los Angeles; Pedro U. Lima, professor of computer science at the Institute for Systems and Robotics at the University of Lisbon; Liza Loop, educational technology pioneer, futurist, technical author and consultant; Peter Lunenfeld, professor of design and media arts at the University of California-Los Angeles; Clifford Lynch, director, Coalition for Networked Information; Keram Malicki-Sanchez, Canadian founder and director of VRTO Spatial Media World Conference; John Markoff, a fellow at the Presence Center at Stanford University School of Medicine, previously a senior writer at the New York Times; Giacomo Mazzone, secretary-general of Eurovisioni and member of the advisory council of the European Digital Media Observatory; Sean McGregor, founding director of UL Research Institutes, developing safe, open-source digital systems; Lee Warren McKnight, professor of entrepreneurship and innovation, Syracuse University; Filippo Menczer, director of the Observatory on Social Media at Indiana University; Alan D. Mutter, consultant and former Silicon Valley CEO; Satoshi Narihara, associate professor of information law at Kyushu University in Fukuoka, Japan; Bitange Ndemo, professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Nairobi Business School and chair of the Kenya AI Task Force; Jean Paul Nkurunziza, expert moderator with the Internet Society and researcher at CIPESA Burundi; Beth Simone Noveck, director, Burnes Center for Social Change and GovLab; Kunle Olorundare, vice president, Internet Society, Nigeria; Andy Opel, professor of communications at Florida State University; Aviv Ovadya, a founder of the AI & Democracy Foundation; Zizi Papacharissi, professor of communications and political science, University of Illinois-Chicago; June Parris, a former member of the UN Internet Governance Forum’s Multistakeholder Advisory Group from Barbados; Raymond Perrault, co-director of Stanford University’s AI Index Report 2023 and leading computer scientist at SRI International from 1988-2017; Daniel Pimienta, leader of the Observatory of Linguistic and Cultural Diversity on the Internet, based in Nice, France; Lorrayne Porciuncula, founder and executive director of the Datasphere Initiative; Calton Pu, co-director, Center for Experimental Research in Computer Systems, Georgia Institute of Technology; Chen Qiufan, co-author with leading AI expert Kai-Fu Lee of the book “AI 2041: 10 Visions for Our Future”; Kelly Quinn, professor of communication at the University of Illinois-Chicago; Alex Raad, managing director at Anthium Advisory and host of the TechSequences podcast; Howard Rheingold, pioneering internet sociologist and author of “The Virtual Community”; Chris Riley, a public-interest attorney working on Internet policy issues; Mauro D. Rios, adviser to the eGovernment Agency of Uruguay and director of the Uruguayan Internet Society chapter; Kyle Rose, principal architect, Akamai Technologies; Steven Rosenbaum, co-founder and executive director of the Sustainable Media Center in New York; Louis Rosenberg, CEO and chief scientist, Unanimous AI; George Sadowsky, Internet Hall of Famer and former Internet Society Board of Trustees member; Richard Salz, principal architect at Akamai Technologies; Amy Sample Ward, CEO of NTEN; Melisssa Sassi, partner at MachineLab Ventures; Eric Saund, independent AI research scientist; Vanda Scartezini, a co-founder and partner at Polo Consulting who has also served in many global and Brazilian IT leadership roles; Mark Schaefer, a business professor at Rutgers University and author of “Marketing Rebellion”; Jan Schaffer, entrepreneur in residence in the school of communication at American University; Daniel S. Schiff, assistant professor and co-director of the Governance and Responsible AI Lab at Purdue University; William L. Schrader, Internet Hall of Fame member and advisor to CEOs, a co-founder of PSINet; Ray Schroeder, retired associate vice chancellor for online learning at the University of Illinois, Springfield; Henning Schulzrinne, Internet Hall of Fame member and co-chair of the Internet Technical Committee of the IEEE; Evan Selinger, professor of philosophy at Rochester Institute of Technology and author of “Re-engineering Humanity”; Greg Sherwin, senior principal engineer at Farfetch in Lisbon, Portugal, and global faculty member at Singularity University; Ben Shneiderman, human-computer interaction pioneer and author of “Human-Centered AI”; Toby Shulruff, owner and principal of a futures consultancy based in Beaverton, Oregon; Aram Sinnreich, professor and chair of communication studies at American University; Bibek Silwal, a civil engineer and founding member of the Youth Internet Governance Forum in Nepal; Wolfgang Slany, CEO and founder of the open-source educational software company Catrobat; Nrupesh Soni, founder of the Facilit8 digital consultancy, based in Namibia; Philippa Smith, a digital media expert, research consultant and commentator based in New Zealand; Jim Spohrer, retired executive who led major projects at IBM and Apple; Sharon Sputz, director of strategic programs at Columbia University’s Data Science Institute; Jon Stine, director of the Open Voice Network; Chris Swiatek, co-founder and chief of product at ICVR, an LA XR development company; Jonathan Taplin, author of “Move Fast and Break Things: How Google, Facebook and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy”; Evelyne A. Tauchnitz, senior researcher at the University of Lucerne’s Institute of Social Ethics; Brad Templeton, chairman emeritus at the Electronic Frontier Foundation; Jaak Tepandi, professor emeritus of knowledge-based systems at Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia; Charalambos Tsekeris, senior fellow in digital sociology at Greece’s National Centre for Social Research; Garrett A. Turner, vice president for strategy at wireless networking company Liberty Port; Karl M. van Meter, director of the International Association of Sociological Methodology, based in Paris; David Vivancos, CEO at MindBigData.com and author of “The End of Knowledge”; Maja Vujovic, owner and director of Compass Communications in Belgrade, Serbia; Wei Wang, a fellow at Fundação Getulio Vargas and PhD candidate in law and technology at the University of Hong Kong; Russ White, Internet infrastructure architect and Internet pioneer; Alexandra Whittington, futurist, writer and foresight expert on the future of business team at Tata Consultancy Services; Dmitri Williams, professor of technology and society at the University of Southern California; Dean Willis, a consultant for protocols, standards and systems architecture at Softarmor Systems; Pamela Wisniewski, professor of human-computer interaction and director of the Socio-Technical Interaction Research Lab at Vanderbilt University; Michael Wollowski, professor of computer science at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology; Kevin Yee, director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Central Florida; Warren Yoder, longtime director at the Public Policy Center of Mississippi, now an executive coach; Amy Zalman, defense, security and justice advisory specialist at Deloitte; Deanna Zandt, media technologist and consultant; Roberto V. Zicari, head of the international Z-Inspection AI initiative; Ethan Zuckerman, director of the Initiative on Digital Public Infrastructure at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

Additional appreciation

We also would like to thank Rebecca Bass, Chris Spires, Garry Graham, Holley Berry, Aaron Glancy and Kacie Q. Anderson for providing assistance in publishing this report.

We welcome your feedback and new ideas for our future reports. Contact us at imagine@elon.edu

This report by Elon University’s Imagining the Digital Future Center is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International.