The Shape of Things to Come

[Alien8]

2000

• The average spend per household on Christmas presents in 2000 was £478.87

• 38% of families played a board game as part of their entertainment.

• 54% of people made phone calls to their friends and family; 21% wished friends and family a Merry Christmas by text

• 96% sent Christmas cards in 2000

• 70% of people recorded what they wanted to watch on a VHS recorder

• 17% of people planned their meal time and opening presents around TV




2010

• The average household anticipates it will spend an average of £485.43, up from 2000 despite the recession

• This year 33% of people are planning to play on the Wii or Kinect for Xbox 360 as their form of family entertainment

• 60% of us will use Skype at some point over the Christmas period

• 44% of people plan to text someone

• One in four plan to contact their friends and family via Facebook or Twitter

• 93% of people still plan on sending Christmas cards this year, however Ecards will also be increasingly popular with

• 30% of people planning to send one compared to only 15% in 2000

• 36% of the households questioned now have Sky+

• This year 38% of people on Christmas day will be searching online for sale products




2020

• Comet estimates an average Christmas spend per family of £850

• Holograms, immersive Tv, foldable screens and Smart surfaces will have developed to such an extent that a whole wall in your home will become a smart surface acting as an entertainment hub for music, gaming, television and internet, says futurologist James Bellini

• Voice over IP facilities will have progressed to include holograms allow friends and family to be ‘virtually present’ in your living room. Internet TV will dominate all TV programming and games. Recording programmes will no longer be needed since they will be available on demand from vast storage networks

• We will be able to click on things we see on our favourite TV shows and purchase them, meaning Christmas shopping will be taken to a whole new level. Developments in near field communications will let shops tailor to our individual tastes.

 

[Dan B]

Shocking lack of imagination

 

[beanzontoast]

What tends to happen is that variations on already-developed technologies - e.g. phone > mobile phone > mobile phone with radio/camera/webaccess etc - arise far more predictably and frequently than the entirely new technologies that really revolutionise that way people live and work.

The technological horizon is always further away than it looks.

 

[Theseus]

... but where is my HoverCar?

 

[e-rider]

what?

I was expecting to spend Christmas 2020 on the Moon

 

[NickM]

...33% of people are planning to play on the Wii...

Really? I'm planning to get pissed. Is that what they mean?

 

[Dan B]

What tends to happen is that variations on already-developed technologies - e.g. phone > mobile phone > mobile phone with radio/camera/webaccess etc - arise far more predictably and frequently than the entirely new technologies that really revolutionise that way people live and work.

The technological horizon is always further away than it looks.

Hmm, I'd have cited the mobile phone (and possibly the mobile web, but I think that one might be too soon to call) as having been one technology that really has changed the way people live and work.

 

[Dan B]

Are the average spends inflation-adjusted? Otherwise £478 ten years ago must surely have been worth a few bob more than £485 is now

 

[beanzontoast]

Hmm, I'd have cited the mobile phone (and possibly the mobile web, but I think that one might be too soon to call) as having been one technology that really has changed the way people live and work.

Maybe. But not everyone uses a mobile for work. And apart from being able to ring or text people whenever the fancy takes us, has this really changed the way we live? Most of us still have to go to work to earn the money to buy things! The mobile phone hasn't changed that.

 

[Dan B]

It's going to take more than technical changes to get us to a place where technology enables us to spend our days in leisure, I'm afraid, it will require an attitude shift. If the technology was developed tomorrow to replace all our jobs completely, we'd be unemployed, not retired...

 

[CharlieB]

• We will be able to click on things we see on our favourite TV shows and purchase them

I'll look out for Kelly Brook in 2020, then…

 

[BSRU]

2020


• We will be able to click on things we see on our favourite TV shows and purchase them, meaning Christmas shopping will be taken to a whole new level.

Already a reality in South Korea.

 

[dellzeqq]

2020

All spreads other than butter and hard margarine are banned. As is sliced bread.

Football squad numbers are banned and all teams wear shirts numbered 1 to 11 without names on them

Weston-super-Mare is the new Sorrento

House plants are banned

All papers are delivered by paper boys who have to whistle while delivering

The government publishes a list of proscribed first names to include Kylie, Juniper, Tristram, River, LeAnne and George (following the trial and conviction of George Osborne)

MacDonalds are banned.

Travel pages in sunday newspapers are banned.

 

[summerdays]

I sent my cards ... no e-cards ... but later than normal.

But I'm suprised that the average household spent has changed so little. Perhaps it is because my children are now teenagers but I'm definitely spending more on them as the years go by. And I alternatively berate myself for spending too much on them and then worry that I've not got enough for them. I feel I don't spend very much on them throughout the year and therefore tend to spend a bit more at Christmas.

 

[Brains]

By 2015 the UK will start to undergo severe electrical shortages, brownouts in certain areas are at the moment almost guarenteed. As the old coal and Atomic power stations get to the end of their life.

Therefore Christmas 2020 could be

The most popular presents are
* Black market bio fuel for the generator
* Logging axes
* Christmas Candles could take on a whole new meaning


As for all the electrical based communications and entertainment, it may be a case of the family gathering around the fire to eat and play board games after