As 'digital natives' mature, world to have 6 billion mobile connections, 4.7 billion Internet users

Like us on Facebook

They will "comfortably participate in social networks with several hundred or more contacts, (and) generate and consume vast amounts of formerly private information."

The term 'digital native' was coined by U.S. educationist and thinker Marc Prensky as means to differentiate between people who were born after the world was largely wired by the information technology systems and those who were born earlier, who had to slowly learn their steps and 'immigrate' into the wired world.

Evan I. Schwartz's 1999 book on e-commerce, 'Digital Darwinism', had drawn out a similar analogy and predicted a time when no venture could effectively be left out of the Web, or the 'grid' in Asimovesque parlance. "In the future, there may be no such thing as an Internet company. The Internet is becoming so important that all companies will eventually become Internet companies."

Schwartz wrote those words in 1999.

Now, the 'Generation C' findings suggest that people's lives are going to be much 'smarter' than we could imagine.

"By the year 2020, an entire generation will have grown up in a primarily digital world. Computers, the Internet, mobile phones, texting, social networking-all are second nature to them... This is the demographic group we call Generation C-the "C" stands for connect, communicate, change)."

The connectivity explosion predicted to take place in the next ten years is astounding. The study says by 2020, there will be as many as six billion mobile phone users, and the number of people accessing the Internet will hit 4.7 billion from 1.7 billion currently.

According to the study, the global population is projected to be 7.6 billion in 2020.

The study reveals a thoroughly upbeat prognosis of the shape of things to come.

"High-speed broadband, whether fixed or mobile, will be pervasive and affordable. Secure online identity systems will allow reliable user authentication. Rational regulatory schemes will open up commercial activity worldwide. And companies and individuals will be able to profit fairly from the intellectual property they generate."

However, it also says the connectivity culture won't just be an overarching economic and business reality, but it will influence culture, lifestyle and political outlooks.

"The Internet's power will develop not just through its online economic might, but also offline, as a cultural and political influence," the study says, adding that the new generation will be politically progressive, upwardly mobile and that most of their social interactions will take place on the Internet.

"They've grown up under the influence of Harry Potter, Barack Obama, and iEverything-iPods, iTunes, iPhones. Technology is so intimately woven into their lives that the concept of early adopter is essentially meaningless."

The privacy hang-up of the digital immigrants will become a thing of the past when the Gen-C takes over. For them the benefits of seamlessly broadcasting personal details will far outweigh the concerns over online privacy harbored by today's netizens.

The result would be the "the availability of an abundance of real-time, personalized information on individuals' presence, online status, physical location, preferred communication channels, friend networks, passions, and shopping habits," says the study.