Since then, of course, the Web has rapidly become so ubiquitous that it’s hard for many to remember how they bought things, did research, watched video or kept up with friends and family before it. If it seems like the Web has gone from “the World Wide What?” to necessity of modern life in record time — well, it has, as the chart above illustrates.
Not everyone, of course, will go as far as Kurzweil, either conceptually or into the future. But when the Pew Research Center asked hundreds of experts about their predictions for digital life in the year 2025, they foresaw the Web — and the internet more broadly — evolving into “a global, immersive, invisible, ambient networked computing environment.” Tapping into that sea of information, they believe, will become as effortless and automatic as flicking on an electric light switch — if not more so.