Cyber future will bring mixed blessings.

The cyber revolution will change human life dramatically and not always for the better, a report from the World Future Society indicates. "The Cyber Future" lists 92 ways that information technology will alter our lives by 2025. The good news is that we likely will become richer and better educated as we use computers more in our work and learning. However, we also may become lonelier and less healthy. Our largely solitary electronic entertainment will keep us removed from society, and we'll suffer more health problems due to physical inactivity.

"Infotech is amplifying our ability to produce the material goods of life, to cure diseases, and to expand the human enterprise into the universe," notes World Future Society president Edward Cornish. "We are becoming goodlike in our capabilities," but "we do not know how to use our growing power wisely."

Cornish anticipates that infotech will cause so many changes in the world that skills and knowledge rapidly will become obsolete. Education may have to be made compulsory for adults as well as children to make sure they...