Q11.Who might live together in a household?

In a world where there’s no internet, men make up a majority of leaders and we value variety.

By Tucker Cholvin

I’ll start with the first because I find it most interesting. So many of my housing arrangements have hinged on the Internet – like how I met Cameron on Grindr! So, I would expect that if the Internet suddenly disappeared, there would be fewer households like mine has been the last few years, and new arrangements would be made. Maybe people would find roommates through work, or friends, or by personal referral. And classified ads would be able to make a comeback! (Without an internet, we would have newspapers again to read them in!) 

But not all relationships and households are like mine, and I wonder how the Internet would affect people in romantic relationships, and specifically their decision to move in with one another. I suspect that without the Internet a lot of couples would move in together faster – in part because it would become more difficult to meet (other) people, and so people would commit more readily to relationships. (I do think that in an era of online dating everyone is constantly looking over their shoulders for other, better options, and second guessing themselves.) 

Also, there would be less to do! So maybe people dating would move in together faster, and maybe they would take roommates or boarders on more readily, just for variety.

I also think that the disappearance of the internet would make the average household larger. If we assume that something happened and the Internet disappeared overnight, it would cause a huge economic crash, and I could imagine a ton of families moving into cross-generational households to save money. The disappearance of the internet would also create a bunch of low-skill jobs, like messengers and secretaries. But those jobs would also be low-wage, again pushing people into larger group housing. (Also, no Internet means there’s no Amazon, which means there are a TON more errands to run. So, a larger household would help with that.)

Men making up a majority of world leaders: I always struggled with this criterion because it’s not too difficult to imagine, it’s the world we have today! Perhaps with men as a majority of leaders, we can assume that gender-based violence remains a big problem – so it could be more likely that any given household includes a man, as some form of protection. Or because men as leaders signals that in this future, men still earn more than women. Or maybe all this means that women are more likely to live with others, on balance – either other women, or male partners, while men might be more likely to live by themselves.

This last piece about valuing variety I find really fun to think about. Maybe co-housing arrangements like the ones that people are currently innovating and piloting now would become more popular. You go, live somewhere for a while, meet some people, and then move on. That would be hard without the Internet though, since that model relies on teleworking to succeed. But maybe people move more in the future this way. Maybe in the absence of the Internet, people would seek to set up and join fixed rotational schemes, where you could subscribe and then be shuffled either by people or addresses. For example, maybe you move into one address for a fixed term of one year, have two new roommates cycle through at four-month intervals during that time, and then you get a letter assigning you your new address at the end of the year there, and move on. If people truly value variety and don’t make too much fuss, it could work! 

I do think the value and variety and the end of the Internet would make the borders more common. For couples, for families, for anyone. Or perhaps with a variety at a premium but the Internet gone, people would hire more au pairs for their children from abroad; maybe that model would expand, since Internet gigs like WOOFing and couchsurfing would become very difficult. I like all the possibilities though. Variety is a welcome thing these days!  

Imagining Future Spaces is a project by Natalie Harney designed to support and inspire conversations about what alternative worlds might look and feel like.

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