In the history of the human race, there has never been a person that can see the future. Back in 2009, who would’ve guessed that Donald Trump would become president, or that Ben Affleck would win an Oscar, or a Swedish sandbox game would become the biggest video game of all time. The point is that the future is virtually unpredictable, but in this article I am going to attempt to make predictions for what this next decade will look like, across various areas of our world. 

Sports: The popularity of the MLS explodes.

Soccer is the most popular sport in the world and the US is the primary distributor of entertainment, so it would only make sense that the two would eventually collide. The Major League Soccer (MLS) and soccer as a whole would likely be much more popular if there hadn’t been a 70 year period of the 20th century where there wasn’t a pro soccer league in the US. Every year the MLS gets more and more popular and by the end of the next decade its popularity could rival that of the National Hockey League or even Major League Basketball.

Music: The tragic, continued, death of rock.

There have been some extremely big rock hits in the past decade. Unfortunately they have all been either farewell albums, such as Blackstar and You Want it Darker, or are tied to the success of a movie, for example “Bohemian Rhapsody” or “Guardians of the Galaxy”. The main exceptions to this have been either relegated to one-hit-wonder status; like Gotye, Bastille, Foster the People and Fun.; or despite their success, they are generally disliked by mainstream listeners and have begun to face backlash for their music; examples being Imagine Dragons, Fall Out Boy and Coldplay. People still enjoy listening to rock, and probably always will, but with a lack in the popularity of the new rock music being put out, its irrelivancy will continue to grow, barring some form of renaissance in the genre, such as the Punk rock or Grunge movements.

Movies: Artsy, award-winning movies start to move onto streaming services.

In the past few years, Netflix has become home to many films of high acclaim. “Roma”, “The Irishman”, “Marriage Story”, and “The Two Popes” are all Netflix-distributed films that have won and been nominated for many awards. The issue for these types of movies has always been lack of exposure, and in streaming services they may have found their sanctuary. Streaming services get the benefit of lots of attention from award buzz and the filmmakers get an invaluable level of distribution.

Politics: Instagram and social media will have an even bigger impact on shaping political opinions. 

According to a poll from Business Insider, 59% of Gen Zers get their political news from social media, and with Instagram being the most popular social media among teens, it’s completely inevitable that Instagram will play a major role in shaping political opinions. Since Instagram is owned by Facebook, there is the inevitable fear that the same issues that came from political ads on Facebook will arise on Instagram. One would hope that Facebook learned from their ordeal with congress and a lack of supervision, but it wouldn’t be too surprising if around 2025 Mark Zuckerberg is forced to testify in front of america once again.

Business: Automation expands further and further.

The automation of various industries, mainly construction and manufacturing, has increased more and more over time, and this trend is almost certainly going to continue. What could change is the industries being automated. As Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes more and more complex, it will likely start to creep into more unexpected positions. The Turing test is a test designed to see how life-like an AI is. In the test a human interacts with the AI and if the human does not realize they are talking to an AI, the AI passes. If such a device is perfected, theoretically every job is up for grabs.

Tech: Self driving cars become the norm. 

For decades people dreamed of flying cars. Well, in truth it turned out that flying cars were too impractical and too expensive. Instead the revolution to the automotive industry will be self driving cars. The debut of them will likely be similar to the iPhone. One moment they don’t exist, the next, they’re everywhere. Right now several companies are racing to be the first to debut these, and once automated vehicles are released, it could change the role cars play in daily life. Big cities or private companies might buy entire fleets of these cars, and then you will be able to call one to your house instead of owning your own, similar to Uber or Lyft.

Chances are that every single one of these predictions is more than a little off. In ten years this list might be hilarious to look back and laugh at. Then again, in ten years this article and this website might not be on the internet anymore. In ten years life as we know it right now might not exist. Who knows?