Technology Trends of the Early 21st Century

A trend by definition is “a general direction in which something is developing or changing”. I don’t know about you, but for me just about anything I can find in my house that runs on electricity or a battery and either lights up or makes noise I can find something older and more primitive that helped shape what it is today. Much like the past has shaped the technology we are using today so are we forging the path ahead of use for the future. Can you remember some things that you used to use a little over a decade ago that you no longer use, but are instead using improved versions of? Remember watching VHS and DVD’s? We still watch movies and television shows, but now we do it on Blu-Ray players or stream them online using services like Netflix. Did you get a flat screen television in the past? Remember how cool it was that the screen didn’t conform to the shape of the tubes that produced images you were watching; now to think of a television that is below the standard 720p-1080p definition is somewhat painful. How about sharing the good old family landline to call up your friends and meet up for an evening out, do you remember doing that? Cell phones have replaced landlines as we used to know them to the point that according to an article posted on cellphones.org; 50% of the younger generations have never even used a landline!

As the definition dictates a trend will develop and change never dying out but adapting to use new technology and become more useful and efficient. Going between cellphones.org’s wonderfully laid out statistics sheet for differences between cell phone use in 2000 versus 2009 and mobiThinkings statistics on current cell phone usage for 2012, I was able to put together some rather interesting facts if you’re willing to follow me here. In 2000 an average of 1 out of 10 people had a cell phone, and in 2009 that number jumped all the way up to 6 out of every 10 people owned cell phones. In the most current statistics polled 8.67 out of every 10 people own a cell phone; if you round it up that leaves 1 out of every 10 people without a cell phone. However just to be on the safe side we will say it is 8 out of every 10 people, but with the rate of change between 2009 and 2012 being about 20%; following this rate of change by 2015 we will be very close 10 of 10. However the rate of change seems to only increase and not decrease. What does this mean? I’d like to think that it means that cell phones are coming close to the same place that landlines where at the turn of the millennium and that something bigger is on the horizon, but only time will tell.

Interestingly enough, when cell phones first began to see a rise in use everyone was uncertain about how the radiation from them would affect our health. Now we can look back at that old myth and laugh as we carry our cell phones on us virtually all day and all night. Medical technology has been on a trend in the early 21^st century also. Christian Nordqvist wrote an article rather recently for Medical News Today regarding the trends in life expectancy in humans. In the early 20^th century the average life expectancy was 31 years old and in 2010 the world average was at 67.2 years. That is a rather drastic jump in life expectancy, considering the average’s up to 52000 years prior fluctuate between 20-30 occasionally going a bit higher and lower but never very far from that range. Much of this can be attributed to the advances and strides that we’ve made in medicine over the last several years, we are able to be more consistent with lifesaving treatments and medicines that ever before in history.

So where does this leave us? By my calculations this leaves us on the highway to the future cruising in a hot red convertible with the top down on a hot summer day. We are moving into the future at a fast pace and we should all take the time to be aware of it so we can embrace it and help build upon it.

Cellphones.org (2/19/2010) http://cellphones.org/blog/whats-happened-with-cell-phones-this-decade/#axzz2BKCN8H00

mobiThinking, Global Mobile Statistics 2012 Part A (5/23/2010) http://mobithinking.com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobile-stats/a#subscribers

n.p. (2012, October 2). "People Worldwide Living Longer, A New Challenge, Says United Nations." Medical News Today. Retrieved fromhttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/250989.php.