Body
Your relationship with your body may be under pressure, but you could have more capacity than ever to control it.
The forces acting on ‘Body’ in the future
Among the many forces influencing people’s relationship with their body in the future, we explore new ways to control your body and new ways we may feel pressured about them.
With the emergence of technology that lives in, on and around the body, we can foresee an ever growing capacity to monitor and analyse all aspects of our body and mind. This ability to understand ourselves in more quantified ways may alter how we make decisions about our lives and health, particularly alongside the notion that lifespans may be dramatically extended. There may be advanced tools and techniques to adapt and control people’s rituals, habits and behaviours.
We also observe potential scenarios where intensified and expanded forms of social media use sophisticated behavioural economics and catalysed social pressure to obligate people to live publically and share intimately. These new social pressures may amplify anxiety in those who are already uncomfortable with their body image. Is it possible that people will increasingly adopt a mindset where dominance over their bodies means being in harmony with them?
With these potential forces acting on people’s relationship with their bodies, we explore three hypothetical scenarios: Personal Control, Structured Social Judgement and Smart Aging.
Personal control
Obsession with measuring everything that goes in and out of the body amplifies obsessive conditions. Personal identity becomes the virtual idealised (perfect) self instead of current physical reality. Devices measure everything and anything about people.
Structured Social Judgement
Constant social media judgement could lead to extended states of anxiety, potentially making people attempt to perfect their outward appearance. Data could be collected against people’s will and without their knowledge, leading to further control over people’s behaviour.
Smart Ageing
People’s life expectancy may seem to perpetually extend without people really knowing when death may come. Living with an ageing body will be a longer part of life and therefore illness is even more problematic. People may dedicate more of their life to extending their lives.
