Copyright Ian Pearson, BT Futurologist

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The future of leisure

For Business and Technology, November 1997

What are you doing tonight? Every day you have to make decisions about how to spend free time and the choice increases all the time. Humans are gregarious though, so there's a good chance you'll visit friends, perhaps wine and dine, and generally spend time together. Social contact will probably always dominate our free time; only the restrictions imposed by geography will change. With video walls in fifteen years time, you’ll be able to have a beer or play a computer game with a friend in Washington and another in China, for not much more than a voice call today. Personally, I can’t wait for 2020, by which time I’ll be able to use a direct link to my nervous system to give full Holodeck functionality. Forget virtual reality, that’s Total Recall stuff, but I accept it’s not to everyone’s taste.

Many of us have already made new friends across the Internet, an ideal place to find others of like mind. While most meetings are accidental, some Internet sites already build up a picture of some aspects of our characters on the fly and put us in touch with others who share the same taste in music. Even when you are in town or at a party, your smart badge will constantly swap information with everyone else's, telling you which other people share the same interests or whom you are likely to get on with. Imagine: the girl of your dreams walks past and suddenly your badges flash and vibrate, romantic music plays in your earphones as your eyes meet, knowing you are fully compatible - and available. Today she would probably have just walked past without a second glance. The badge could be very small and discreet and use radio or infrared to communicate. Information can even be transferred through skin by a simple handshake or kiss (of course a kiss will probably mean the badge is redundant). The ‘Circuit’ on Logan’s Run is still some time off though.

But sometimes we want to be alone in our leisure time. In the arts, computers will help us to be more expressive, assisting us to build on the skills and creativity we have, while bridging the gap where we show no hope. Since I was always bottom of the class in art at school, for me this is likely to be a spectator activity. But any of us could compose a symphony by humming a tune and working with the computer to build on it. Perhaps even I could work with a computer to make an acceptable painting or explore the interior decoration opportunities for my house.

Immersive computer generated environments will be very compulsive - even addictive, especially when linked directly into the nervous system in a couple of decades. They will offer attractive and imaginative worlds, where we can escape from the real world. Our friends could be present as avatars, which could be chosen to be realistic, or cartoon characters, or any image they feel like. We may experiment with different appearances to see how it affects new relationships. Some people will undoubtedly experiment with their presented gender. Even computer programs could have visual personalities represented in these environments, so pure network relationships can be expected to be confusing. You may not be sure whether your cyberfriends are real or just software. You won’t know for certain what the people you meet are really like at all, since their appearance cannot be trusted. Maybe that’s nothing new though.

As everyday life gets safer and more sedentary, risk and stimulation through physical activity becomes more welcome. Extreme sports may become more popular and new variants will be invented as technology and materials progress. Other sports will simply evolve along obvious lines. Zorbing currently involves rolling down hillsides suspended inside a large soft inflated plastic ball. I expect soon to see other people jumping out of planes and then inflating these spheres, hopefully before landing. Even cybernetics will probably play an important role in many sports before too long. How long before we just let the robots do the extreme sports while we sit back watching them get splattered?

TV will remain, albeit digital and potentially higher resolution, with larger screens hanging on walls, but you know all that. I want a room with all the walls covered in screens to give a fully immersive environment for recreation, virtual travel, socialising, shopping etc. I asked Hitachi about this. Don’t hold your breath.

Provided we can keep some of the Ozone layer, it may still be safe to wander outside, where cheap positioning and navigation will stop us getting lost, while other gadgets provide local tourist or shopping information.

So the future will bring many new ways to spend our leisure time. What is less certain is whether we will have the time and money, but that’s another article.

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