Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 12, 1994                   TAG: 9411150056
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

RENAISSANCE?

This is the forecast of Marvin Cetron, author of several books about the future, consultant to presidents and both political parties and, by his own description, a realist. He lists 74 trends and forecasts affecting the United States and projects where they will leave the country in the next century. They leave him pretty upbeat.

As far as the overall society, Cetron predicts the middle class will grow, and both the very poor and very wealthy will decline as a percentage of population. Affluence and low interest rates and inflation rates will continue; Social Security will be reformed, with means testing and taxation of benefits; and technology will become increasingly dominant in the economy and society.

Rather than fearing increasing polarization among racial and ethnic groups, Cetron foresees growing acceptance of cultural diversity and the eventual flowering of a truly integrated society. He foresees this in the rise in intermarriages; the common cultural checkpoints provided by movies, television and computer networks; and the increasing mobility of people from one part of the country to another.

Computers not only will continue making our world smaller, high-tech will become pervasive in our everyday lives. Personal robots will appear in homes by 2000, Cetron predicts, and will be taking over mundane commercial and service jobs. And "expert systems," which gather data electronically and issue reports and recommendations without human intervention, will be used widely in manufacturing, energy prospecting, automotive diagnostics, insurance underwriting, law enforcement and medicine. No theory, yet, on what kind of bedside manner these will have.

Readers will get customized newspapers from computer systems that log onto news-service databases at night, select stories and photos that fit individual interests, lay them out, and set headline sizes according to their importance to the individual. You might miss that smell of printers' ink, but it will always be delivered dry.

All of this may sound sterile, a leap away from human interaction, but there are benefits as well as drawbacks. Cetron foresees a surplus in physicians by 2001, leading them to focus attention on individual patient care. And he predicts some colleges and universities will close for lack of enough adolescents to fill them, but those that survive will offer students more support from faculty and advisers.

Notable throughout his report is the rapid change that will accompany a rapid expansion of information in a computer age. Cetron foresees a seven-hour academic day for schoolchildren. And adults will spend another eight hours a week preparing for their next job. Work will be done by teams of specialists assigned a specific task, and middle management will be cut in half as more information flows directly between specialists and higher management.

If you're gasping trying to keep up already, Cetron offers this reassurance: Computerized manufacturing will shorten the average work week to 32 hours, and Americans will more than regain their lost leisure time. Of course, they'll be spending it getting ready for that next job. But, come to think of it, being a futurist sounds like a pretty easy living.