With the end of 2019, ended a decade. Though we may not have realised it on a daily basis, the world changed massively in the last decade, with technology being one of the areas that witnessed a revolution. One of the revolutions in tech was Facebook, the biggest social network worldwide — the website had 2.45 billion users as of the third quarter of 2019, as mentioned in a report by Statista.
Ten days into the new decade, founder of Facebook himself, Mark Zuckerberg, has outlined the things that he thinks will be important in the next 10 years.
Zuckerberg, in a Facebook post on Thursday, said that he is giving up on yearly goals that he set every year and is focusing on "longer-term" goals.
"Rather than having year-to-year challenges, I've tried to think about what I hope the world and my life will look in 2030 so I can make sure I'm focusing on those things," Zuckerberg wrote.
Here's what the Facebook founder said will be important in the next decade:
Generational change
Zuckerberg feels that the generational change of addressing important issues will take place this decade. "Today, many important institutions in our society still aren't doing enough to address the issues younger generations face — from climate change to runaway costs of education, housing and healthcare. But as millennials and more members of younger generations can vote, I expect this to start changing rapidly," he writes.
"Over the next decade, we'll focus more on funding and giving a platform to younger entrepreneurs, scientists and leaders to enable these changes"
A private social media platform
According to Zuckerberg, in the next decade, some important social infrastructure will help us reconstruct smaller communities to give us a sense of intimacy we crave today while being a part of large communities.
"This is one of the areas of innovation I’m most excited about. Our digital social environments will feel very different over the next 5+ years, re-emphasizing private interactions and helping us build the smaller communities we all need in our lives,” he says.
Decentralising opportunity
Zuckerberg hopes that over the next decade we will "build the commerce and payments tools so that every small business has easy access to the same technology that previously only big companies have had".
"At the end of the day, a strong and stable economy comes from people succeeding broadly, and the best way to do that is to make it so small businesses can effectively become technology companies," wrote the Facebook founder.
The next computing platform
According to him, while phones will remain to be our primary devices through most of the decade, at some point in the 2020s, we will get breakthrough augmented reality glasses that will redefine our relationship with technology.
"Augmented and virtual reality are about delivering a sense of presence -- the feeling that you're right there with another person or in another place. Instead of having devices that take us away from the people around us, the next platform will help us be more present with each other and will help the technology get out of the way. Even though some of the early devices seem clunky, I think these will be the most human and social technology platforms anyone has built yet," he writes.
New forms of governance
"As long as our governments are seen as legitimate, rules established through a democratic process could add more legitimacy and trust than rules defined by companies alone. There are a number of areas where I believe governments establishing clearer rules would be helpful, including around elections, harmful content, privacy, and data portability. I've called for new regulation in these areas and over the next decade I hope we get clearer rules for the internet," Zuckerberg wrote.
