What life in Tokyo will be like in 100 years 3

Just as the world was in the middle of the industrial revolution about 150 years ago, so we are living in the age of a technological revolution today. In the past 20 years, we have seen technology develop dramatically ? more powerful computers, the birth of smartphones, the increased use of mp3s and video files, the beginning of social media and instant communication with people anywhere in the world, as well as entertainment increasingly moving online in the form of streaming services. We could hardly imagine what life was like 30 years ago without today’s technology. It therefore stands to reason that in another 100 years we would have developed technology even further.

I think the first major change we will see is a shift to a cashless society. Online methods of payment are convenient and easy, and we will possibly just be able to use our smartphones to pay for everything in the future. There may be some security risks associated with online banking, but hopefully in the future humans will have found a way to make it more secure and simple to use. We will be able to use it everywhere ? in all shops, on the train, at the airport or hospital. This technology is already becoming increasingly popular today, so one can imagine that in 100 years it will already be considered old technology and merely an everyday occurrence!

However, will we still be using smartphones 100 years from now? They are sometimes too big and clunky and we may lose them, so possibly we will have technology that is smaller and easier to wear. Some companies have already started developing smartphone operating systems that can operate on the user’s arms. There was also a lot of interest in Google glasses a few years ago, but for some reason they never really took off, so maybe we will stick with the smartphone, unless something really innovative comes along!

In 100 years, we may be making use of robots in our daily lives. Nobody likes doing things like cleaning and other tedious chores, so it may become commonplace to use robots for these kind of tasks instead, giving us more free time. Perhaps everyone will have robot butlers. Imagine how convenient that would be! There may also be robots in service industry jobs such as sales, and blue-collar jobs such as factory work, leaving more opportunities for humans to pursue creative work.

Hopefully 100 years from now, we will have even better public transport in Tokyo than we already do now! We may find a way to make the trains in the future faster and less crowded, and perhaps by then we may already have flying cars! However, as we should really be more eco-friendly, hopefully the transportation of the future won’t use gasoline. In fact, I hope that in 100 years we will only be using renewable energy (even for trains and other kinds of transport) and taking care of the Earth much more than we are at the moment.

Ilze

Vocabulary

dramatically (adj.) ? by a large amount; very much
occurrence (n) - a happening; an event
stick with (phr. v) ? continue with the same thing / situation
innovative (adj.) - unique and fresh; an interesting new idea