BT Study: Children believe tech will make the world a better, greener place

Robots taking on chores and travelling to school through the air are just a few of the technologies many children see for their future.

What may have once been a utopian science-fiction novel is now a real prospect for primary school children interviewed as part of BT’s ‘Bright Future’ report. The report questioned 1,000 primary school pupils across the UK what they think the future holds and the issues that will be most important to solve. Interestingly, what they see on the horizon is not too far off the mark and gives an encouraging view of young people’s interest and knowledge in technology and their optimistic view of the world’s future.

Within the next decade almost half of BT’s respondents believe that more people will have cars that drive on their own, robots will do their household chores, and a third believe that their post will be delivered by drones.

Likely a consequence of the pandemic, a quarter of the students think school will be online all the time and classrooms will be a thing of the past.

While e-scooters and e-bikes are a thing of the modern-day, respondents see school children flying to school in the next 50 years. And with the recent space race, it’s no shock that half have a holiday among the stars in their sights.

Other thrilling possibilities include the chance to visit friends and family who live far away through drones, teleporters or other transport technology (38%), and being able to get a job anywhere and work from anywhere thanks to the internet (33%).

Half of the students said they believe that technology will make the future much better. Through sharing information and lessons through the internet, the students added that technology could solve more problems.

‘Slowing climate change’ was cited as an issue technology can aid in by finding ways to make the things we buy last longer, meaning fewer things thrown away (31%), helping make cars and other vehicles less polluting (30%), and helping us be more careful about how much electricity we use (20%).

Pupils are optimistic and eager to see what the future for technology and the world holds. As one student in their video said: ‘Well, there’s no real way of telling what the future will be like. So, whatever it is like, it will be very different from what life is now. I guess humans are very adaptable.’