While science is going to be important, people in the twenty first century will also be less optimistic about the utility of science in dealing with problems of social nature. Developing countries are going to develop along the Japanese model: embracing technological and scientific innovations but remaining traditional in their outlook. This is going to be a complex development, as the flow of information from the developed countries is going to be disproportionally much higher than the flow of information and know-how from the developing countries. As such, westernization of traditional societies is likely to continue, perhaps in an accelerated manner; the primacy of English as an international language is going to continue in the age of facebooks and twitters, and the MTV and Hollywood are going to shake and in some cases destroy traditional cultures in many parts of the world. But at the same time, people receiving the western flow of information are going to be resistant, trying to preserve their traditional ways of...
The means of communication such as text-messaging, email, the Internet, social networking through facebook and twitter are already profoundly changing our ways of communicating with our relatives, friends, and business partners. Many youth today do not have as many face-to-face encounters with their peers as the older generation youth had in their time, and that is certainly influencing human relations among today's youth. There will certainly be new innovations in communication technologies in the twenty-first century which will change our worldview, our understanding of human relations, and our everyday values. All these changes will take place within the framework of the information-based postmodern society.
References
Macionis, John. Society: the Basics. Boston: Prentice Hall, 2005.
