Writing Artefacts from the Archive: Images of the Future
In 12 years from now we will be in the year 2000AD. The passage included in your booklet gives one person’s thought about what life will be like in the 21st century.
1. Read the passage and think about how far you agree with what the writer has to say about changes in city life, housing, transport, shopping and banking, education.
2. When you have read the passage, write about your own predictions for life in the 21st century: EITHER concentrate on one of the topics mentioned in the passage, OR discuss how far you agree with the general picture of the future presented in the passage.
Shopping
Shopping at home I feel will really catch on and be successful because we see evidence of this on tv from Ceefax and Oracle. W882im_25590m
I don’t think people will want this as they prefer to go out and see things for themselves especially if the item is clothes they would prefer to try on that item in the shop and feel the quality of the material before buying. W882im_25124f
I do not agree that banking and shopping will be done at home, because our unemployment situation is already bad and our future Prime Ministers will not close down all banks and shops as they make up most of our services and so many people would be out of work. W882im_25070f
A lot of shops, restaurants and hotels do accept bank cards, which enable people to buy whatever they want. W882im_25593f
Technology
Now there are more channels you can watch than years ago and in the future there will be even more channels than at the present. The size of televisions are already changing from very small packed to large screens like you can see in few houses but in the future a lot of houses will have 7-foot television screens. W882im_25593f
There’s also going to be more televisions that have a video, CD, tape recorder, record player radio and the new digit tapes, will all be built into the television and so you have all the equipment in one part of the house e.g. sitting room. W882im_22560f
We are already able to get more televisions stations than the basic four; BBC1 and 2, London and Channel 4. Broadcasted through the pipeline are: Sky, Super, Channel 33, MTV and Children’s programmes, Satellite dishes will drop in price and nearly every house will have one in the back garden. Television screens will be large and small plus you will be able to record the two channels on the video at the same time. W882im_22541f
In the home we will be able to play games on the television set with an opponent who is in a house on the other side of town. W882im_25593f
I think that in the 21st Century there will be phones that you can see people on the other end and if you haven’t seen them for a long time like if you were ringing Australia you could see how much each other had changed. This idea would be good. W882im_22560f
The Environment
Britain will be a cleaner place to live in, in the future, littered streets will be a thing of the past. W882im_22523f
I also think that there will be no pollution because scientists will find out a way to stop pollution like using lead-free petrol or other things. I think that the people of the future will try to save the wildlife or the countryside because if they don’t it will soon all be gone.W882im_22522m
The poor and unemployed have taken to the underground passages that used to be used to transport people from place to place. These passages give them shelter from the acid rain which has become more concentrated in recent years due to chemical plants being set up. The acid rain has destroyed all vegetation and contaminated rivers, which now are brown in colour and offer very little fish, and of the fish they do offer more are contaminated with lethal doses of radiation. Radiation is the major problem as the ozone layer has been destroyed and so the sun has laid waste the earth, turning ¾ of it into barren wasteland. Also, radiation leaks are common from nuclear plants as the rich no longer care about anything but themselves and money. W882im_22517m
Before we develop a more luxurious life for ourselves let us first develop and find a safer way to live, whether concerning weapons, nuclear energy or pollution. W882im_22080
