Shopping, social media, YouTube and… cats? Eerily accurate 1995 video shows kids predicting future of the internet

Aug 17, 2012 | Online advertising

Move over Nostradamus- this video from 1995 shows US school children predicting the future of the internet with unnerving accuracy, right down to the web’s obsession with cats. This public service announcement is currently doing the viral rounds, showing ten–year-olds from Montana’s Ray Bjork Elementary School answer the question, ‘Why should I be on the […]

Move over Nostradamus- this video from 1995 shows US school children predicting the future of the internet with unnerving accuracy, right down to the web’s obsession with cats. This public service announcement is currently doing the viral rounds, showing ten–year-olds from Montana’s Ray Bjork Elementary School answer the question, ‘Why should I be on the Internet?’ with some predictions of how the internet will be used by the time they are college-age.
Watch the video below, including a shot of the archaic Yahoo! homepage:


1995.jpg
The kids make then-novel claims about the Internet being useful for shopping, video, chatting with long-distance friends, researching homework assignments and touring the planet Jupiter and the Sistine Chapel all in one day.
One little girl even mentions finding a recipe for cat-food cupcakes — a discovery that predates Lolcats by more than a decade.
The claims were pretty bold given that the internet was in the age of dial up AOL and only 15% of Americans were using the web.

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