We’re all gadget geeks now
There used to be a time when a majority of the population was content using older gadgets, content to let their leading edge use be adopted by a few "tech enthusiasts". Not any more.
A recent study released by Forrester Research revealed that a shift has taken place. What used to be the pursuit of a few has now decidedly become mainstream. We're all gadget geeks now. Here are some highlights from the study:
- Half of all American adults are gamers
- Sixty-three percent of American households have a broadband Internet connection
- Three-quarters of American households have cell phones and computers
- And nearly 10 million American households added an HDTV in the last year, a jump of 27 percent over 2007. In fact, the American home has more televisions that people.
-I have a joke around the fact that ninety-eight percent of all American homes have a television set. A few percentage points less, around ninety-six percent have indoor plumbing. The punchline? It's the first time in our history we have more crap coming into the home than we do going out.
There is really no group today out of the tech loop, with families leading the charge. The introduction of such popular gaming platforms like the Wii, have created openings in homes for the adoption of more and technological gadgets.
These stats highlight the accelerating nature of the impact of change in our live. Take television for example. When it was widely introduced to Americans after World War II, it took approximately fifty years for it to migrate into the majority of homes. Today, practical cell phones were widely introduced to Americans around 1996 and currently penetrate eighty-two percent of the population.
We're all gadget geeks now, enthusiastically embracing new technological advances and leaving older tools to rot at a rate never before seen. Makes you think about what might be passed on as heirlooms now a days…