What the Future will bring and how it will affect My Family and I
In the past few decades, technology advancement and globalization have increased rapidly. As a result, the doing of things have changed with time. Technological advancement and globalization will increase in the coming decades. Discussions in most global forums on these advances are in terms of their effects on the world as a whole. However, I am also aware that new technology and increased globalization will also affect me as an individual.
Interconnectivity has increased around the world mainly in terms of communication and transport. This means that in the future, any member of my family or I, would work in another country and manage to come home on a daily basis. This, therefore, means that there will be growth in the labor market that my family members and I will be seeking employment in from a national to a global one.
The economic environment has been changing in the last couple of decades; this has made consumers cautious of their purchase decisions. I do not foresee this changing in the coming times; I believe that I will be keener on what I buy and how I spend my money to cope with fluctuations in the economic environment.
Globalization also has negative impacts; I believe my family will be affected more by these negative impacts in the future that at present. First, the increase in pollution will result to waste control and management been devolved to households from governmental agencies. We will implement waste control protocols in our household, similar to what industries do at the moment.
One remarkable innovation of this decade is social networking. Currently, social networking sites account for most of the traffic on the worldwide web; in the future membership of these sites will increase considerably. As a result, I expect more family communications to be done via these sites. Also, I believe all members of the family will be required to have an account with one or more social network sites; and if the growth seen in this era doubles, we might even have a family account where we would connect with other families.
A characteristic of the political environment today is activism for children’s rights at the moment. I expect this to continue in the future and as a result the government will closely monitor how I treat my children. Also, due to the early maturity ages of children at present, which I also expect in the future, the age that a minor becomes an adult will be lowered. This will mean that my children might become legally recognized adults as early as when they are in high school. This will make it more difficult to enforce discipline as the children would regard me as an equal as per the constitution.
The change in economic, social and political environment is going to affect my family and personal lifestyle in the future. The increase in interconnectivity will mean that physical separation between family members will increase as communications will be done online. My personal lifestyle will be affected in that I will be more cautious in making purchase decisions due to fluctuations in the economic environment. However, despite all these implications, I look forward to this future and gladly welcome any positive advances in technology. We cannot stop growth, but we can teach ourselves to handle and live with it.
