Futures 124 (2020) 102637

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Futures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/futures

Dutch doubts and desires. Exploring citizen opinions on future

and technology
Patrick van der Duin a, *, Paul Lodder b, Dhoya Snijders c
a
The Netherlands Centre for Technology Trends, Koninginnegracht 19, 2514AB, The Hague, the Netherlands
b
Department of Methodology & Statistics, Tilburg University, Warandelaan 2, 5037AB, Tilburg, the Netherlands
c
Rathenau Institute, Anna van Saksenlaan 51, 2593HW, The Hague, the Netherlands

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Because the future belongs to all of us, not just to experts or professionals, knowing what people
Technology think about the future is not only interesting, but also relevant to the functioning of modern
Opinion democracies. This study about what Dutch people think about the future and about technology
Survey
shows, among other things, that they are generally positive about technology and science, but
The Netherlands
Citizen
more gloomy when it comes to the future of society. People find it difficult to think about the
(distant) future and spend little time reflecting on it. It is precisely the current speed and
complexity of global changes that ensures a revaluation of the historical context when the world
was still manageable. Another outcome is that the respondents are relatively down-to-earth.
Representations of the future that are vastly different from our current state of affairs can
count on little support. Dutch realism is also reflected in a long list of technologies that the re­
spondents would rather not see developed.

1. Introduction

Although it is often said that the future belongs to all of us, studies of the future usually rely on the knowledge, judgments and
opinions of experts. For example, a popular method used in foresight studies is the Delphi method, which was designed by Gordon and
Helmer (1964) to consult experts about the future, especially involving topics that are unstructured and lack empirical (historical) data
(Marchau & van de Linde, 2016). It makes sense to involve experts in future studies, because their substantive knowledge has been very
important in shaping our society. It is a good thing that our bridges are built by engineers who are trained at technical universities, that
we are diagnosed and operated on by doctors who have received years of training, and that the chef in our favourite restaurant not only
has a good taste but also knows about kitchen hygiene. The fact that we rely on knowledge, often scientifically based, and on the people
who possess that knowledge, is a great asset that has helped humankind solve complex problems.
Having said that, the ‘shared’ future is a future that belongs to all of us. It does not only belong to experts, and should therefore not
only be shaped by experts. Galtung argues that it is indeed better to ask non-experts for their view on the future, because experts are
commonly occupied with safeguarding their narrow role as experts and are therefore not well-equipped to step outside their disci­
plines, can try to use their expert status to make their own predictions come true, or are unable to relate to broad societal challenges
(Galtung, 2003). When it comes to estimating what new developments are coming our way, specialized knowledge based on analysis
and historical data alone does not appear to be the best counsellor (see e.g., Tetlock, 2005). Or, as the American philosopher Nicholas

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: vanderduin@stt.nl (P. van der Duin), p.lodder@uvt.nl (P. Lodder), d.snijders@rathenau.nl (D. Snijders).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2020.102637
Received 9 March 2020; Received in revised form 24 July 2020; Accepted 5 September 2020
Available online 14 September 2020
0016-3287/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
P. van der Duin et al. Futures 124 (2020) 102637

Butler once said, specialists know ever more about ever less until eventually they know everything about nothing.
From a foresight methodological perspective, for example, Technology Assessment (TA) can be regarded as an attempt to incor­
porate the opinions and preferences of non-experts (i.e., the public) in technology development (Mulder, 2016). The argument that this
method is (still) required for countering the colonization of the future by experts (‘elitist visionaries’) is put forward by Sand (2019),
who claims that TA is still focused too much on expert opinions and narratives and pushes aside those of other people. The argument
that taking into account the opinions and values of people is relevant is put forward by Gudowski and Rosa (2019) who note a clear
difference between the content generated in expert-based and citizen-based foresight studies as they explore the consequences of the
societal challenges for R&I-policies of the European Union.
Moreover, just as in a democracy everyone has a voice, and not only the experts, many people do not live or want to live in a strict
technocracy, although that is related to the strength of their “democratic attitude” according to Bertsou and Pastorella (2017). It is,
therefore, also important to give the non-expert a voice about the future as well. In a similar vein, Androutsopoulou, Karacapilidis,
Loukis and Charalabidis (2018) argued that democracy and technocracy are the two pillars of effective public policies and that we
should strive to create a balance between them by combining the technocrats’ expertise with public opinion through digital platforms.
And based on the notion that history is an important source for learning important lessons for the future, historians Jo Guldi and David
Armitage offer a “history where thinking about the future is no longer left to experts”, but “where remaking the future is once again
something within the purview of anyone who can read and talk about stories from the past” (2014, p.30).
This article describes the results and reflections of a study conducted in 2019 by the Dutch Study Centre for Technology Trends
(STT) that can be viewed as another serious attempt to make the public voice heard. We asked a representative sample of 1000 in­
habitants of the Netherlands about their opinions on possible developments in the future. They were asked about the possible future
state of social issues, such as the environment, the economy, and governance, about their personal relationship to technology and the
future, and about their views on the social consequences of developments in biotechnology, safety, robotics and digitization. They
were also asked how quickly (or how slowly, if ever) they expect technological developments the take place, which technologies they
consider desirable, how hopeful they are about certain technologies, which technologies need to be invented, and what needs to
happen now in order to influence the future. The result is a wealth of information that provides a representative picture of how Dutch
people think about technology and the future in 2019. For some of these topics, we compared the 2019 results with those of the first
National Future Monitor, which was conducted by STT in 2016 (Snijders & Van der Duin, 2017).
In this article, we specifically address the following six research questions:

1 What do Dutch people think about the future in general?

2 What do Dutch people think about the possible general future courses of technology?
3 What type of futures do Dutch people desire?
4 How do Dutch people think about the possible future course of safety, robotics, digitization, and biotechnology?
5 Do the opinions of the Dutch people on the future and technology vary across sociodemographic characteristics?
6 How do the results of this research compare to the results of the first National Future Monitor (2016)?

In section two, we discuss literature on how people generally speaking deal with the future. Then, in section three, we describe the
research structure and methodology, while the first four research questions are addressed in section four. Section five provides the
demographical perspective and addresses question 5, while section six addresses question 6 and compares the research results to those
of the first National Future Monitor (see Snijders & Van der Duin, 2017). We close this article by presenting the research conclusions
and by discussing them from a few theoretical perspectives.

2. People and their future

As numerous studies over the years have pointed out, experts are not always reliable when it comes to making decisions. In 1967, a
relatively large research project called ‘IMAGES’ was conducted, in which young people from various countries around the world were
asked 200 questions about how they imagined the year 2000 (Wiberg, 2003). Interesting results were, for instance, that the future
many respondents were not that occupied by the future, that dividing lines between opinions were mainly between and not within
nations, and that people were united in their desire for peace as well as in how that could be achieved. Maybe even more interesting,
and surprising, was that, when the predictions made by both ordinary people and experts were evaluated later on, it turned out that
ordinary people were able to predict the future more accurately than the experts, which lead Galtung (2003) to draw the conclusions
mentioned above about the predictive validity of experts.
More recently, Davies (2011) reports about a study examining the ordinary people discuss uncertain futures surrounding nano­
technology and which tools can be used to discuss the pros and cons of this emerging and socially very relevant technology. With
regard to exploring alternative futures for a specific country, Chambers et al. (2019) present four alternative and preferred scenarios
for Australia in 2050 that were built upon an online national public opinion survey. Another study involving people in foresight studies
is conducted by Ono (2003), who asked young people in Taiwan and the U.S. about their image of the future. It makes sense to focus on
young people, because they will be part of and build that future. Angheloiu, Sheldrick and Tennant (2020) also focus on young people,
by using ‘design futures methods’, which allows them to explore the distant future (2038 and 2068) and the possible pathways to these
futures. Despite the development of ‘pluralistic alternative futures’, they conclude that “deeper challenges rooted in the homogeneity
of dominant Western imaginaries and the hyper-individualistic turn of the late-modernity remain” (p.1). The fact that asking the public
about the future of certain societal issues is not without its consequences is illustrated by a study by van den Bergh, Savin and Drews

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(2019), in which public opinion about whether or not economic growth is beneficial to our environment has an effect on the support for
sustainability policies. In addition, they relate the dynamics of public opinion to the state of the economy.
In recent years, studies have also shown that experts do not always perform better than other people. For instance, Kaufmann, Reips
and Wittmann (2013) have demonstrated that, for certain decisions, experts do not perform better than students. In particular with
regard to foresight (i.e., making predictions), Tetlock and Gardner (2015) have shown that experts (i.e., specialists) are not better in
making the right predictions than generalists. This argument is in itself not sufficient reason to turn to ‘ordinary’ people to consult and
construct possible futures. In addition, one could argue that there is a moral or democratic obligation to set up a foresight study in
which citizens are the units of analysis. However, before doing so, it somehow has to be established that people are indeed interested in
the future, that they are capable of looking at the future, and that they are convinced that the future is valuable to their daily lives.
Let us start with the question of whether people look to the future. In foresight studies, the neurobiologist David Ingvar is often cited
as the discoverer of a part of our brain focused on addressing “what-if”-questions (Ingvar, 1985). According to his research, our frontal
and prefrontal cortex contain areas devoted to ‘memories of the future’ that serve as a foundation for foresight, planned
decision-making and thinking about the future, both in the short and long term. These findings have been corroborated by other
researchers, who used functional brain imaging techniques to show that thinking about the future involves the same neural circuitry
that we use to remember the past (Schacter, Addis, & Buckner, 2007). Suddendorf and Corballis even suggest that people are skilled in
‘mental time travel’: “…the faculty that allows humans to mentally project themselves backwards in time to re-live, or forwards to
–pre-live, events” (2007, p.299), while Gjesme (1983) argues that “(T)he ability to foresee and anticipate, to make plans for and
organize future possibilities represents one of the most outstanding traits of man” (p.347), and Seligman, Railton, Baumeister, and
Sripada, 2013, p.xi) believe that “the unrivalled human ability to be guided by imagining alternatives stretching into the future -
‘prospection’ – uniquely describes Homo sapiens”, for which they consider the name “Homo prospectus” a better one (p.xii). Appar­
ently, looking to the future is indeed an established part of the human condition, although it is not a talent that is unique to humans.
According to Dutch ethologist Frans Van der Helm (2016), animals develop strategic plans for the future as well. In addition, using big
data about how people use social media, Thorstad and Wolff (2018) investigate ‘future sightedness’ (i.e., how far do people’s thoughts
about the future extend into the future) and they conclude that ‘future sightedness’ is a relatively stable cognitive trait that is consistent
over time. Nevertheless, Klineberg (1967) found that the notion of a distant future becomes more important as individuals go from
childhood to adolescence, but that this does not hold for the ‘maladjusted’ (i.e., adolescents of low socioeconomic status, who do
poorly at school and/or suffer from anxiety). In addition, Shannon (1975) emphasizes that cultural differences can also play a role in
(future) time perspectives and suggests that the causal link that connects an excessive focus on the present leads to a failure to obtain
future goals can be reversed, in which case the expectation of not realizing future success leads to a focus on the present.
In short, the relationship between people and the future is not a straightforward one. McKnight (1978, p.159) refers to Boniecki
(1977), who states that “(t)he average man seems to be concerned only with immediate problems, often of a trivial nature, and remains
completely insensitive to future issues”, which echoes the famous study by the Meadows et al. (1972), which claimed that people are
predominantly occupied with short-term issues and their immediate environment (see Fig. 1). Boniecki (1980, p.174), however,
concludes that the (social) time horizon (orientation) of people to be effective should not exceed the average individual time horizon,
which is 10–15 years into the future.

Fig. 1. The time orientation of people (Meadows et al., 1972, p.23).

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However, McKnight asserts that people cannot do without the future from a psychological point of view; the future is as real as the
past (p.159). According to McKnight, people not only have a cognitive model of the world, they also have values. If those values do not
match the current state of affairs, people will start planning in order to realize that future state (p.160). People are “goal-directed”, or
“teleonomic”, or “teleological” (McKnight, 1978, p.159). Stern (1978), however, states that this behaviour does not come about by
itself but that the aim has to be to determine under what conditions people care about future generations and to ensure that their
current behaviour does not put a (too) heavy load on future resources (Stern, 1978, p.150). This problematic trade-off between the
present and the future is clearly witnessed in the way people deal with their personal health. Nan and Qin (2019), for instance,
examined how dispositional time orientation predicts health-related behaviour and find, among other things, that “future (vs. present)
thinking significantly increased intentions to quit smoking through enhanced perceived self-efficacy for quitting smoking” (p.148).
Karniol & Ross (1996, p.613) state that this relationship between past, present, and future is bi-directional and that the present and the
future “color people’s recollections of the past” as well.
Toda (1983) adopts a biological perspective by considering the human perspective on the future an important stage in the “evo­
lution of biological information processing systems” (p.351), in which human beings have developed “a perspective over things that do
not exist, while everything that exists in the physical universe must exist in the present tense” (p.352).
Looking to the future is not only a personal, biological or psychological trait; it is also a social trait, because it plays a role in how
people relate to each other. Trommsdorff (1983) states that “socialization is always future oriented, and future orientation (as a
component of the person’s time perspective) is an integral part of the socialized personality” (p.381). Szpunar & Szpunar (2016, p.378)
refer to this as “collective future thought” and define it as “the act of imagining an event that has yet to transpire on behalf of, or by, a
group”. They consider it important to relate this forward-looking activity to the past, since it allows groups of people to devote more
attention to the past but also to remember the past in a different way.
The personal and social aspects of looking to the future do not always need to be in the same direction. People can be positive or
optimistic about their own personal future and negative or pessimistic about the collective future, i.e., the future of their country, as
Shrikanth, Szpunar and Szpunar (2018) found in a study among U.S. and Canadian citizens. In a former study on how Dutch people
look to the future (Snijders & Van der Duin, 2017, p.33) we illustrated this ‘mismatch’ by citing sociologist and former director of the
Dutch Social and Cultural Planning Office (SCP), Paul Schnabel: "I am doing well, but we are not". This could be considered the
foresight-variant of the ‘micro-macro-problem’ that exists in economics and sociology, and by which it is meant that we can explain the
whole by looking at its constituents. Apparently, multiple optimistic individuals do not an optimistic people make.
To conclude, people appear to have a natural tendency to consider the future. The topic is important on a social level, as it tends to
relate people to each other. There are, however, various obstacles, both psychologically and socially, that hinder people in their
development of specific associated skills, including the ability to develop “future consciousness” (Lombardo, 2008) or a well-balanced
“time-perspective" (Zimbardo & Boyd, 2010).

3. Methodology

3.1. Questionnaire

A survey was carried out by market research agency Ipsos on behalf of the Netherlands Study centre for Technology Trends (STT).
The questionnaire was developed by STT and Ipsos. The 2016 questionnaire served as the starting point, based on which STT proposed
several changes and to which Ipsos also made recommendations for improvement. After consultation between STT and Ipsos, a final
version of the questionnaire was drawn up. The net duration of filling in the questionnaire was about 15 min. Ipsos programmed the
final questionnaire via the Internet in Confirmit for the purpose of the research.
The questionnaire of the National Future Monitor 2019 was structured as follows. To begin with, we asked a panel of respondents
(see 3.2) respond to statements regarding the future of social issues, such as the environment, the economy, science, technology,
governance, and social unrest and conflict. With regard to technology in particular, questions were asked about how people relate to
technology, whether they perceive technology to have a positive or negative influence and whether politicians pay sufficient attention
to technological developments. Respondents could then indicate in an open question what positive and negative changes they foresee
for 2040 as a result of technology. Subsequently, six propositions were used to zoom in on the relationship between technology and
security, after which three technological domains were discussed: robotization, digitization and biotechnology.
For each domain, respondents were asked whether or not they expected the technology in question to improve society in general
and what they believed its impact could be on social issues like employment, discrimination, solidarity and happiness. In the case of
digitization, they were also asked what influence it has on various sectors in society.
A number of domain-specific questions were posed as well. In the case of robotization, for example, respondents were asked
whether they would appreciate having an intimate relationship with a robot, in the case of digitization, whether we need computers
that produce art, and in the case of biotechnology, how they would feel about genetically modifying pets to prevent allergic reactions
in their owners.

3.2. Respondents

The gross sample was representative of the Dutch population in terms of gender, age, education, urbanity and district. To realize a
net response of 1000 respondents, a sample of 2000 people was initially contacted. The survey was programmed for the Ipsos panel in a
survey that the respondent could access from their personal portals. Data collection took place between 10 September and 21

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September 2018, during which timeframe Ipsos provided a telephone and online helpdesk to allow respondents to ask any questions
about completing the questionnaire. Ipsos panel members received an invitation by e-mail. Respondents to the Ipsos Online panel
received an incentive (bonus points) for completing the questionnaire. Although the initial dataset contained the answers of 1319
respondents, 318 of them did not give permission for linking and delivering background characteristics to STT. These respondents were
removed from the dataset, resulting in a final dataset with a sample of 1001 respondents.

3.3. Data processing

The file was then cleaned by checking the legitimacy of the codes and the consistency. When cleaning the data, quality checks were
carried out where necessary. The results were recorded in an SPSS data file, in which all variables are provided with a name and a label.
The name of the variable refers to the question number. Each record in the file represents one respondent and every respondents is
unique. The data file contains a total of n = 1001 respondents, all of whom have given permission to link and deliver their background
characteristics to STT, something which 318 respondents did not give permission to do, which is why they were removed from the file.
In addition to the answers to the questionnaire, the dataset also contained information regarding the sociodemographic charac­
teristics of the respondents (i.e., age; sex; education; urbanity degree; region 5 division; denomination; gross annual income; number of
children in household; voted political party in Dutch 2017 national elections). Differences between demographic characteristics were
analysed for continuous outcomes using analysis of variance, and effect sizes were expressed in terms of Cohen’s d (2 compared
groups) or partial eta squared (3 or more compared groups). Chi-squared tests were used to compare demographic groups on cate­
gorical outcomes and effect sizes expressed in terms of Cramer’s V. Differences between the 2016 and 2018 panel were assessed using
an independent t-test and effect sizes were expressed in terms of Cohen’s d.
The scores on the questionnaire items were weighted to obtain estimates of the response patterns in the population of all Dutch
citizens. Linear weighting was applied based on gender, age, education, urbanity and district within the Dutch adult population. The
weighting took place on the basis of the targets (percentages) as issued by the MOA Golden Standard. The weighting factor was added
for all graduates.

4. Results

4.1. The future in general

This aim of this section is to answer our first research question on how the Dutch people think about the future in general. Our first
observation was that the Dutch have great confidence in science and technology as a means of progress. No less than 64 % of the
respondents ‘agreed’, and another 24 % ‘totally agreed’ with the statement that, in 2040, science and technology will have made great
progress. The fact that 88 % of the Dutch people answered this question positively was not reflected in the degree to which people are
positive about the future in general: 39 % were neutral, while 32 % were positive and 26 % were negative. Regarding the state of the
Dutch environment, economy, and governance in 2040, people were predominantly neutral and the positive and negative expectations
keep each other in balance. Also, to the question of whether Dutch people think that in 2040 society in general will look better than it
does now, a large proportion (39 %) replied "neutral", with 43 % being negative and only 15 % positive. The respondents’ view on the
future society was more pessimistic than their view on the future in general. For the time being, we explain this difference as resulting
from the positive attitude towards science and technology. The respondents’ opinion on whether there will be less unrest and conflict
in 2040 is clear: 73 % disagree with this statement, 6 % agree and 18 % remain neutral.
We like to pay special attention to the question whether people think about the long-term future (more than 20 years). No less than
60 % replied that they do not do that often, 23 % were neutral, and (only) 16 % responded they often think about the long term. These
figures do not paint a positive picture about the future-mindedness of Dutch inhabitants. However, we have to keep in mind that the
respondents answered the questions as individuals, as private persons, as citizens. In addition, in our daily lives, we rarely have to
make long-term decisions. At most, we have to decide on whether or not to extend the interest on our mortgage, how to formulate our
will, or decide whether or not to stay in a romantic relationship. However, at work, we are more used to thinking about the distant
future, the more so when we have a ‘higher’ organizational position, at which level we have to think about how the organization will
earn its money in the future and which long-term investments are appropriate, although, in organizations, the ‘future time perspec­
tive’, i.e., the preference of employees for short and long planning horizons, is also dependent on individual capabilities, their hier­
archical position, and organizational negotiating processes (“the politics of time”) (Das, 1987). Nevertheless, it is possible that the fact
that people are different at home than they are at work explains why the low score on this ‘long-term question’ is perhaps not surprising
and indeed very understandable. However, from the response rate to the survey and the number of answers provided to the open
questions, we deduced that people were interested in the future and that thinking about the future appeared to be of great importance
to them.

4.2. Technology in general

To answer our second research question, we focus on the views of the Dutch people on the general course of technology. Our results
indicate that Dutch people expect technology to make life easier and to have a positive impact on the world. In line with these hopes,
two thirds of the respondents indicated that technology makes life easier and a small majority (51 %) was convinced that technology
will have a positive influence in the world in 2040. A third of the Dutch think that technology does not receive enough attention in

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politics. With regard to the question whether they see themselves as "techies": 31 % indicated they are well aware of the latest
technology, while 37 % was neutral and 31 % disagreed with this statement. As far as the impact of technological developments on
their daily lives is concerned, a small majority of respondents said they expect their lives to be improved specifically by technological
developments.
Table 1 lists the expected positive and negative changes between 2018 and 2040 according to the respondents’ answers to an open
question (note that respondents indicated they found it difficult to identify these changes).

4.3. The desired future

In addition to the question whether something will or will not take place before a certain date, we think it is also relevant to
understand which developments are considered desirable by Dutch people. The aim of this section is to answer that third research
question.
It would appear that the Dutch find it particularly desirable that all new houses are built in such a way that they generate and store
all energy themselves and that all passenger transport is electric. Half of the Dutch population also likes robots that perform household
tasks and, although 35 % of the respondents do not like having robots in healthcare, 36 % think that that is desirable.
55 % of the Dutch think that printing food with the help of food printers is undesirable (while 27 % think it is highly undesirable).
Regarding the entire list of technologies, which also includes topics like autonomous transport, teleportation, colonizing other planets,
relatively many Dutch people have a neutral opinion about the desirability (often around 30 %).
What (most) people expect and what they want can lead to interesting combinations, because what we expect but do not wish
should make us think, and nor can we ignore a technology that we do not expect but do want. This creates the framework presented in
Table 2.
It is striking that the respondents did not consider any technology desirable but not expected, which betrays an optimistic attitude
towards current technological developments. We do, however, expect action and policy on topics that are expected but undesirable,
such as robots in healthcare, autonomous cars, and meat grown in laboratories. The question is, of course, whether Dutch people find
these technologies undesirable as a whole, or whether people would prefer to see such technologies develop in a more desirable di­
rection. It is possible that they base their opinion about the desirability of a technology on contemporary examples of that technology
that they are less than enthusiastic about. It is also important to know whether the respondents themselves have the choice to use or not
to use a given technology. If every (public) place in the Netherlands is monitored, it is difficult to escape the constant surveillance in
public spaces, while reading from an ‘old-fashioned’ medium such as paper (book) instead of a digital screen is a choice people can
make for themselves. It is clear that people worry that the development of technologies in this category will not automatically benefit
society.
We do not really have to fear the category ‘not desirable/not expected’, even though experts could argue that some of these de­
velopments are more realistic than the Dutch expect. After all, the intelligence of computers is advancing rapidly, as is our life ex­
pectancy is, and food printers are increasingly found outside the laboratory. On the other hand, although we do have a negative impact
on the climate, influencing the weather is still very difficult, not to mention the teleportation of objects or the colonization of other
planets.
Finally, the category ‘desirable/expected’ can be seen as representing the ‘right way’. The current transition to sustainability is
clearly reflected in the new homes that generate and store energy themselves and the emergence of electric cars. And the ‘household
robots’ are also very welcome, although that is somewhat strange given that we do not welcome those robots in hospitals (‘unde­
sirable/expected’). A possible explanation could be that we set stricter requirements for caretaking than for household tasks.
And although fear is a bad counsellor, we did ask respondents what it was they feared. It turned out that opinions were divided,
although Dutch people generally were afraid of cyber-terrorism, of commercial organizations that store personal data and of robots
that make their own decisions and act independently.

4.4. Influence on the future

Obviously, people are not completely powerless. To a certain extent, the future can be shaped, which is why we asked our panel
which aspects or technologies need to be invented. It should be noted that the panel found this open question difficult to answer. The
most frequently observed suggestions for future inventions were related to the environment or climate (sustainable energy; electric
cars), healthcare (new cures and surgeries) and robotics; controlling climate change; developing neutral energy and sustainable fuels,

Table 1
Expected positive and negative societal changes between 2018 and 2040 according to Dutch inhabitants.
Expected positive changes Expected negative changes

Better and more efficient healthcare Fewer jobs / employment

Better and more green energy supplies Technology takes over the role of people
More automation of daily tasks Fewer social contacts and more individualization
Easier life Greater economic differences between groups
More war
Less privacy

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Table 2
The expectancy and desirability of future technological developments.
Expected Not expected (at least in the foreseeable future)

Desirable - All new houses generate and store energy themselves.

- Majority of households have robots doing household chores.
- All passenger transport on the road is electric. No fuel engines.
Not desirable - Robots as nurses in hospitals. - Computers are smarter than people are.
7

- Majority of cars drive autonomously (without driver). - Ability to teleport objects.

- Public space continuously monitored. - People create a colony on another planet.
- Supermarkets sell meat that has been grown in laboratories. - Majority of people have a chip in their body that checks their health.
- Lifelike holograms appear during communications. - The average life expectancy increases to 100 years or more.
- Text is only read from screens and no longer from paper. - Households have ‘food printers’ that people use to print out their own food.
- Humans controlling the weather: ensuring the sun shines during public holidays.

Futures 124 (2020) 102637

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peace (tackling crime and war; stopping weapon production), healthcare (better medication, better medical care, eradicating dis­
eases), and social issues (more humane society, better mutual communication and tolerance towards each other).

4.5. The future in four themes

The results discussed in the previous section largely concerned technology and the future in general. In this section, we address the
results of the questions dealing with the four themes of safety, robotization, digitization, and biotechnology. This section aims to
answer our fourth research question on how Dutch people think about the possible future course of safety, robotics, digitization, and
biotechnology.

4.5.1. Safety
With regard to safety, more than three quarters of Dutch people indicated they want information about their own safety and almost
70 % chose a society that is safe over a society that feels safe. Over two thirds also expected that safety will become a more important
social theme in the future than it is today.
On other propositions, opinions were more diverse. For example, 33 % agreed and 27 % disagreed with the statement that legal
violations by a machine should weigh equally heavy as violations made by people. A quarter of the respondents indicated that the
large-scale collection, storage and analysis of data will increase our security in the future, while 38 % disagreed. Twenty-two percent of
the Dutch agreed (and 32 % disagreed) with the prediction that in the future every Dutch person will have a mandatory, personal
digital and physical security plan.

4.5.2. Robotization
The robots are coming! A small majority (53 %) of the panel indicated that they expect robots will improve society. This view can be
nuanced if we draw a distinction between the positive and negative expectations respondents had concerning the influence of robots on
society. As a positive effect of robotization on society, people mentioned automation; taking over work (dangerous, heavy, simple
(repetitive) actions), fewer human errors and better healthcare, and as negative effects, people mentioned more unemployment (fewer
people needed, less employment), less social and human contacts, and dependence.
The panel was also asked what possible impact robotization can have on social issues like employment, discrimination and justice.
Respondents believed that robotization leads to less employment, less solidarity, less freedom of expression, less happiness, and less
equality, but also to less discrimination and more security. In addition, people were asked about the practical application of robots. The
reactions to this show that respondents are mainly positive (83 %) about the use of robots to save lives, but negative about intimate
relationships with a robot (79 %). Robots that take over administrative tasks and operate independently can count on some enthusiasm
(45 % are positive), but respondents prefer not to let them look after their children or older family members (36 % are negative).

4.5.3. Digitization
The second technology that was examined is digitization. Around 50 % of the respondents indicated that they believed digitization
will improve our society in the next 25 years (26 % was neutral and 12 % claimed it will deteriorate society). They also expected that
digitization will primarily improve education and healthcare, while opinions were divided on the impact of digitization on agriculture
and fisheries, the labour market, government and politics, and culture and recreation. When asked how digitization will affect these
domains, about a third of the respondents indicated they expected improvement, while about 20 % expected a deterioration and about
a third thought that the domains will get neither better nor worse. Specific positive expectations they had about the influence of
digitization on society included sharing of and access to information (more accessible, more structured, easier, better); everything is
faster, less complicated and more efficient; more possibilities. Negative expectations include human contacts becoming more
impersonal and personal digital contacts and transactions being difficult to protect, especially because of cybercrime.
If we look at the impact of digitization on social issues like solidarity, happiness and justice, we (again) see a mixed picture. A small
majority of the respondents believed that digitization leads to less solidarity, employment and happiness, but to more justice and
security. With respect to whether digitization was expected to result in more or less equality, we observed a 50/50 distribution, as was
the case for discrimination and freedom of expression.
Subsequently, four statements about digitization were submitted to the panel. It showed that 73 % were negative about systems
that predict what products they want and deliver them unasked, while 58 % were negative about computers creating art. Commu­
nicating with each other in virtual reality and a personal digital assistant who, for example, keeps track of your agenda, could expect to
meet with less resistance (31 % positive, 5 % very positive).

4.5.4. Biotechnology
Biotechnology was the third category surveyed. Opinions about the (general) effects of biotechnology on society were divided;
around 50 % of the respondents were positive. Regarding specific propositions, 64 % of the respondents were positive about organs
that are no longer donated but are custom-made in a laboratory, and 50 % believed that it is good to use biotechnology to prevent or
cure hereditary diseases. On the other hand, opinions about adjusting DNA of unborn children to guarantee their health counted on less
support; only 29 % were positive about this, 26 % were neutral and 39 % negative. More than half (55 %) of the respondents were
negative about the genetic modification of pets to reduce allergic reactions in people.
Frequently observed positive expectations of respondents regarding biotechnology were better healthcare, fewer diseases, better
nutrition, fewer shortcomings and better products. Opposingly, often encountered negative expectations included ambiguities about

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long-term consequences, inability to achieve perfection, the unclear ethical limits, the worry that everything becomes ‘achievable’,
and that biotechnology goes against nature.
Obviously, biotechnology also touches on social issues. According to the respondents, biotechnology mainly leads to less solidarity
(58 %), discrimination (56 %) and freedom of expression (55 %), but it does lead to more security (59 %), happiness (58 %) and
employment (57 %).

5. The future expectations from a demographical perspective

So far, we have considered the respondents as a homogeneous group, which is of course not the case at all. All respondents were
asked permission to link their answers to personal information about gender, age, education, where they live in the Netherlands,
whether and what religious background they have, what their political preference is, what their income is, and whether they have
children. In this chapter, we answer our fifth research question by investigating whether certain demographic characteristics were
significantly related to the answers being given.

5.1. Male / female differences

More men than women indicated that they are better informed about new technology (F(1,981) = 17.0, p < .001, d = .26). Men
were also more positive about robots that perform babysitting tasks than women (F(1,975) = 51.0, p < .001, d = .48), and they
believed more often than women that not enough political attention is focused on technological developments (F(1,910) = 42.34, p <
.001, d = .44). Men indicated more often than women that they believed biotechnology can improve society (F(1,862) = 39.02, p <
.001, d = .43) and that it is desirable for most cars to drive autonomously (F(1,959) = 37.96, p < .001, d = .40). They had less trouble
than women with robots as nurses (F(1,966) = 36.39, p < .001, d = .39) and with chips in our body that control health (F(1,953) =
34.34, p < .001, d = .38), and they were a little less apprehensive of artificial intelligence (F(1,999) = 37.63, p < .001, d = .39).

5.2. Age groups

If we look at age groups, we see that senior citizens (aged 65+) in particular were ‘very scared’ of cyber-terrorism (34 %). In fact,
this age group was significantly more scared than younger age groups (F(3,997) = 19.39, p < .001, η2p = .06). The younger generations
were not entirely without fear, with answers generally leaning towards ‘scared’ and ‘a little bit scared’. Furthermore, 87 % of these
senior citizens preferred to have a society that is safe rather than feels safe. Again, they showed a higher score than the younger
generations (F(3,969) = 17.56, p < .001, η2p = .05), who only partly agreed with this, with agreement percentages around 54 %. In all
age groups, a large majority preferred to know if they are in an unsafe situation, but that increases with age (F(3,985) = 12.11, p <
.001, η2p = .04).

5.3. Level of education

The different educational levels (low, medium, high) appeared to influence the questionnaire answers as well. For example, highly
educated people were more fond of the idea of meat being grown in a laboratory than people with low and intermediate levels of
education (F(2,949) = 27.14, p < .001, η2p = .05). People with lower education were much more afraid than the highly educated of
robots replacing people in organizations (F(2,998) = 25.33, p < .001, η2p = .05), which can also explain why they were less positive
about robots taking over administrative tasks compared to more highly educated respondents (F(2,978) = 23.71, p < .001, η2p = .05).
Another question concerned the pace at which people start to use newly developed technological products, indicating that 27 % of
people with lower education levels responded that they try out new products at a late stage, compared to (only) 13 % of those with an
intermediate education level and 10 % of highly educated people (F(2,998) = 22.41, p < .001, η2p = .04).

5.4. Annual income

When we look at annual incomes, a number of things stand out. For one thing, nearly three quarters of people with an above-
average family income indicated that digitization leads to more security, against only about half of the people with a middle or
below-middle income (χ2(7) = 32.44, p < .001, ϕCramer = .18). With regard to the question whether digitization leads to less happiness,
we see that the above-middle incomes were divided on this issue (50 % agreement), while 70 % of the below-middle incomes (and of
the people who did not want to let us know how much they earn) thought that digitization leads to less happiness (χ2(7) = 24.44, p <
.001, ϕCramer = .16). Regarding the influence of biotechnology on happiness, 70–75 % of high-income earners indicated that
biotechnology leads to more happiness, to which only 50–55 % of the middle or lower-middle earners agreed (χ2(7) = 26.63, p < .001,
ϕCramer = .16).

5.5. Political preferences

When comparing respondents based on their voting behaviour in the 2017 Dutch national elections, they differed primarily in their
answers on questions concerning the influence of technology on happiness. When asked whether robotization leads to less happiness,
there were considerable differences observed among the supporters of the five main Dutch political parties (VVD, PvdA, CDA, D66, and

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GroenLinks), with an equal amount of many respondents agreeing and disagreeing with this statement. There was no clear left-right
division, especially since the supporters of the remaining political parties were unanimous and convinced that robotization leads to less
happiness (χ2(19) = 47.02, p < .001, ϕCramer = .22).
The above-mentioned situation also applies to the question as to what influence robotization has on freedom of expression; we
observed the exact same political parties struggling internally in their answers to this question. Again, respondents belonging to the
remaining smaller political parties all agreed that robotization leads to less freedom of expression (χ2(19) = 51.02, p < .001, ϕCramer =
.23).
The same applies to the influence of digitization on happiness. With the exception of the parties on the left (PvdA and GroenLinks),
respondents voting for the main political parties were not in agreement about whether digitization leads to happiness, while re­
spondents voting for smaller parties were of the opinion that digitization leads to less happiness (χ2(19) = 46.9, p < .001, ϕCramer =
.22).
Things changed when we asked the respondents about the possible impact of biotechnology on happiness. In that case, the sup­
porters of other parties were not all in agreement: PVV (populistic party), SP (socialist party), ChristenUnie (religious party) and
GroenLinks (green left party). The remaining parties agreed that biotechnology leads to more happiness (χ2(19) = 44.04, p < .001,
ϕCramer = .21).
All in all, not a cheerful picture if one is looking for a consensus within a political party. Many parties (or at least their supporters)
are ‘torn apart’ about the possible effects of technology on happiness and freedom of expression. And we see that respondents voting
for the less traditional parties are more in agreement (χ2(19) = 45.87, p < .001, ϕCramer = .21). Nevertheless, this shared opinion is that
new technology ‘often’/’quite often’ has no stimulating effect. Technology therefore does not adhere too much to the classic ‘right/left’
format.

5.6. Religious beliefs

When comparing the answers based on the respondents’ religious beliefs, we found no significant differences between their views
on different propositions, except for the question whether biotechnology leads to more or less happiness (χ2(9) = 35.03, p < .001,
ϕCramer = .19), where we see that members of the Protestant Church of the Netherlands and of the Other Reformed churches were not in
agreement (46 % vs. 54 % and 60 % vs. 40 % respectively). What is also striking is that Roman Catholics indicated more often (69 %)
than Protestants (54 %) that they believed that biotechnology leads to more happiness, while only 38 % of respondents believing in
‘other religions’ were of the same opinion. Among people who answered the question ‘Are you religious?’ with ‘No’, ‘I don’t know’, or
‘I don’t want to say’, 59 % indicated they thought biotechnology would lead to greater happiness. It has to be said that the latter
category also contains atheists and agnostics, which means there is a very large ‘residual category’.

6. Comparison with the 2016-study

STT also conducted a National Future Monitor in 2016 (Snijders & Van der Duin, 2017). Our last research question examined how
these results compare to those of the current survey. We compared the 2016 study and the 2019 study on four topics: (1) The future in
general; (2) The four technology themes; (3) The technology timeline; (4) The desirability of technology. While we understand that
three years is that long a period, nevertheless they make be some differences. We only looked at the most pronounced differences in
terms of Cohen’s d effect size, and not to the answers that remained constant. Although these are interesting in themselves, including
them would make the comparison very extensive, so we did not include answers to questions that remained more or less constant
between 2016 and 2019 (one exception being the general question on whether people were more positive about the future of science
and technology in 2019 than in 2016).

6.1. Future in general: 2016− 2019

In 2019, Dutch people were more positive about the future advance of science and technology than they were in 2016, although this
difference was not statistically significant (t(1918) = 1.822, p = .069, d = 0.08). The 2019 respondents believed there would be more
unrest and conflict in the world on the long term (2040 compared to now) compared to the 2016 respondents (t(1890) = 2.48, p = .013,
d = .11). With regard to new technology, fewer Dutch people in 2019 thought they were aware of new technology than they did in
2016 (t(1971) = -3.306, p = .001, d = -0.15).

6.2. Technology in four themes: 2016− 2019

With regard to robotization, people were more positive in 2019 than they were in 2016 about the impact of robots on our society in
the next 25 years (t(1790) = 4.058, p < .001, d = 0.19), the idea that robots can look after children or the elderly (t(989) = -4.889, p <
.001, d = 0.27), and the idea that robots can take over administrative tasks at work (t(929) = -2.488, p = .013, d = 0.14).
With regard to digitization, people were more positive in 2019 than they were in 2016 about the impact of digitization on society in
the next 25 years (t(1804) = 5.412, p < .001, d = 0.25), but more negative about the affect of digitization on education in the same time
frame (t(933) = -2.793, p = .005, d = -0.16). People have also become more negative about systems that predict what you want to buy
and let it be delivered to your home (t(890) = -2.648, p = 0.008, d = -0.15).
With regard to biotechnology, people in 2019 have become more positive compared to people in 2016 about the impact of

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biotechnology on our society in the next 25 years (t(1708) = 6.977, p < .001, d = 0.34).

6.3. Desirability of technology: 2016− 2019

In 2019, the Dutch were more positive about fully electric passenger transport / the disappearance of fuel engines (t(1932) = 2.955,
p = .003, d = 0.13), as well as about nursing robots working in healthcare than they were in 2016 (t(1935) = 5.716, p < .001, d = 0.26),
and also about the sale of cultivated meat in supermarkets (t(1902) = 5.937, p < .001, d = 0.27). However, people were more doubtful
when it comes to increasing life expectancy to 100 years or more (t(1873) = -3.159, p = .002, d = -0.15) and, by extension, they were
more negative in 2019 than they were in 2016 about medicines that can virtually stop aging (t(1900) = -2.487, p = .013, d = -0.11).

7. Conclusions

In most foresight studies carried out by organizations, experts are the most important source of information. However, no matter
how valuable and inspiring these professional insights may be, we occasionally also need to know what ‘ordinary citizen’ think about
the future and technology, and although a lot of research is being done into what the public thinks about various subjects, we know
that, in the Netherlands, that does not include what people thing about the future and technology, which inspired us to carry out the
first National Future Monitor questionnaire in 2016 and, again, in 2019, ask average Dutch people about the future and technology,
something we will repeat every three years. One reason for this is that our collective representation of the future changes over time;
what we found unthinkable a few years ago may be part of our daily lives today. Certain events, such as large technological scandals
involving cybersecurity threats, or nuclear disasters, may change the way we think about technology and it is interesting to monitor
that over time.
In this article, we discussed the results of the second version of this questionnaire, the National Future Monitor 2019. This study
provides a rich amount of information about the opinions of a large representative sample of the Dutch population on issues related to
the future and technology. As such, the study focused predominantly on how people think about the future and technology in general,
on a macro level, rather than about what they think and feel about their personal future (cf. Tonn & MacGregor, 2009). Let us here start
with what stands out, before reflecting on the broader meaning of the outcomes.
First of all, the Dutch are predominantly positive about technology and science, to which they also pay a lot of attention and in
which they are interested. However, people are less enthusiastic about the future of society in the broad sense of the word. In addition,
few believe that there will be less turmoil and conflict in the future.
However, not everyone gives the long-term future much thought. In Section 4.1, we explain that people do not often think about the
future in a private capacity, but do so more often as employees. Another explanation could be that the ‘historical context’ in the
Netherlands is strong. The Netherlands is full with historical museums, historians dominate the op-ed pages and talk shows, and (partly
because of that) there is a widespread belief that we can draw more valuable lessons from history than we can from the future (Van der
Duin, 2007). A third explanation is that the predominant pessimism in the Netherlands about the future of Dutch society does not
motivate people to engage in this either. Our personal lives and society are increasingly becoming globalized and, because of that, they
are perceived as complex and many people deal with this by focusing on the short term and on their immediate environment. That
could in part explain the rise of populism on the right and, to a lesser extent, on the left. But apparently this globalism does not hold for
every country, as concluded in a study by Shrikanth et al. (2018), which finds that people from the U.S. and Canada appear to be more
optimistic than the Dutch.
Another general observation is that, on the basis of our research, Dutch people can be characterized as down to earth. Technologies
with a high science fiction content, such as teleportation and founding colonies on other planets, were difficult to imagine for the
respondents and therefore dismissed as being unfeasible. Technologies that were closer to the current state of affairs, such as electric
transport and energy-neutral homes, were seen as much more feasible. With regard to these technologies, the conceivable often also
proved to be desirable. The average Dutch person is not only taken in by wishful thinking however, as evidenced by the framework
presented in Section 4.3, which contains a fairly long list of technologies that Dutch people expect but do not want. The relationship
between what people expect and what they want deserves further investigation.
Whether we can influence the future is a more than interesting question, and one which also raises the question who is meant by
‘we’. For the average respondent taking part in in our survey, questions concerning our ability to influence the future were certainly
difficult to answer, as many acknowledged.

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