Our digital dependency and the gadgets that have us hooked

By Dina Gerdeman

Print Story | Email Story
Add to My Digital Landing

Related Articles

• Twitter tackles the story of your life in 140 characters
• Amazon's Kindle ignites reader interest
• FAQ: Windows Vista
• Getting started with blogging
• Dads and grads: Midyear gift-giving guide

Thirty years ago if you needed, say, a new sofa, chances are you would reach for the Yellow Pages and call furniture stores to compare styles and prices by phone. Or maybe you would drive from store to store until you found exactly what you wanted.

Today you would likely start with an Internet search. Within seconds, you could call up photos, prices, fabric swatches and dimensions for a huge variety of sofas. Then you could Mapquest the store you wanted to visit or use the GPS in your car to help get you there, and if you started to feel lost along the way, you could use your cell phone to call the store for directions, all while your kids remained quietly entertained in the back seat watching "Sesame Street" on your built-in DVD player.

Ah, how far we've come technologically speaking in just a few short decades. Today, we regularly depend on a variety of tech gadgets, including: 

Computers and the Internet

Perhaps the single biggest technological advance in the past 30 years came when a majority of homeowners bought personal computers and discovered the magic of the Internet. With online use so prevalent today, it’s easy to forget how relatively new the Internet is. In 1989, personal computers had made their way into about 15 percent of U.S. households; by 2000, 51 percent of households had a computer and nearly 42 percent had Internet access, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

In 1991, Tim Berners-Lee developed the World Wide Web, and in 1994, the Internet went public. Internet use saw staggering growth between 1998 and the present.

Many homeowners have PCs mainly so they can access the Internet, which lets them correspond through email; check out videos on YouTube; make free calls with video cams on services such as Skype; or search for answers to any number of questions -- from symptoms of a health condition to a friend’s home phone number. Many consumers, looking for ever-faster online connections, have ditched dial-up services in favor of high-speed Internet access. 

Cell phones

In 1984, Motorola debuted a portable cell phone, a 10-inch-tall giant that certainly wouldn't slip into anyone’s back pocket. Yet people took to the portability of the cell phone, and its popularity has skyrocketed in the past two decades.

The number of cell phone subscribers in the United States reached roughly 159 million in 2003, up from 34 million in 1995 -- an increase of more than 300 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Today, as many as one in five adults use their cell phones exclusively and do not have land lines. Many also rely on their BlackBerrys, released in 1999, which enable instant mobile text communication. 

TV and movies

In the mid-1980s, the biggest televisions measured 35 inches. (Before that, they came in consoles!) Today, a consumer can mount a 50-inch flat-screen television on a wall. (We've got advice on how to hang a flat panel TV.) The images on the screen have improved as well. Many homeowners now have high definition television (HDTV), a digital television broadcasting system with greater resolution than traditional systems. Our beginner's guide to HDTV can help answer questions you may have about HDTV.
  
And in 1999, recording favorite shows on television became easier with the digital video recorder, including TiVo, which allows users to watch their favorite shows at their own convenience -- and they can skip commercials and pause the action whenever they want.
  
In addition, DVDs and their players first became available in 1997. The first players cost roughly $1,000, and only three dozen movies were released initially, but DVDs caught on and grew in popularity quickly. Many people have VCR-DVD combination players, but VCRs are likely to eventually fade from view; these days many newly released movies are coming out only on DVD and not on VHS.
 
For an added convenience, you can also find a universal remote control that can combine the controls for your television, DVD player, DVR, CD player and even your video games. 

Music

Record albums and players were replaced in many homes by the compact disc player, which first emerged in the early 1980s. The CD player could be installed in cars, homes and personal computers.
  
Music became even more portable in 2001 when Apple came out with the iPod, allowing users to put 100 albums worth of music onto one small gadget and listen to their own personal soundtrack of tunes when they're commuting to work, exercising or puttering around in the garden. If you have an iPod but aren't sure how to use it, our Digital Music FAQ can help you out. 

Photos

Remember the days when you used a 35-mm camera, and you had to wait until the film was developed to know whether you actually caught your son's soccer goal in a shot?

Those days are long gone with the advent of the digital camera, which takes photos and digitally records images on a light-sensitive sensor. Most digital cameras have screens -- many of them liquid crystal displays (LCD) -- that allow you to preview the pictures you have taken before you develop them.
  
In 1986 Kodak invented the first megapixel sensor, which could record 1.4 million pixels and produce a digital photo. In the 1990s, digital cameras grew in popularity when a serial cable allowed the cameras to work with home computers. Today, you can take photos of a baby's first steps (or video) and send it to relatives within minutes of the momentus occasion, or share photos online through a service set up for just that purpose.
  
In a relatively short period, digital camera technology has improved greatly, allowing for much higher-quality images than even five years ago. Likewise, many household staples -- from television sets to how we hear our music -- has evolved. Who knows what 25 years from now will bring?