ONLINE, ANYWAY …
So the Internet turned 25 years old earlier this month and and we missed it … which is inexcusable on our part seeing as we pretty much owe our livelihood to the innovation.
So thank you, Al Gore …
Anyway, the Pew Center came out with some remarkable data on Internet usage in America to mark the anniversary. According to its research, in 1995 only 14 percent of American adults used the Internet. Today that figure is 87 percent – a staggering 527 percent increase. That percentage climbs to 99 percent for people living in homes with family incomes higher than $70,000 – and 97 percent for college graduates or young adults aged 18-29.
Cell phone and smart phone usage has also skyrocketed. Fourteen years ago, 53 percent of adults owned a cell phone. Today? A whopping 90 percent do. Just three years ago only 35 percent of American adults owned smartphones – a figure that has soared to 58 percent today.
That’s a 65 precent increase in smartphone ownership in the last three years alone … which is why websites (including this one) now design layouts with mobile users in mind.
To view the data for yourself, click on the link below …
15 comments
Uh, the cell phone thing ain’t too hard to figure out, seein’ as I’m paying for free ones with every phone bill.
The program was started during Reagan’s term for land line services, and was expanded to cover cell phone service in 2005.
http://www.fcc.gov/lifeline
It’s one of the many services paid for out of the Universal Service Fund.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Service_Fund.
Yes, every telecommunications company pays towards this fund, but it benefits society, and to some extent, them.
I gotsta get my free fones!
Benefits society..indeed. So would free food, free cars, free housing, free healthcare, and free collge education, amiright?
A lot of people are dropping their land lines for cell phones. I still prefer having a home phone since I can give it to people I don’t want calling me on my cell. Then again, I’m not much of a fan of cell phones. They’re useful, no doubt, but can be annoying, especially with other peoples’ inability to function in society properly because they are too goddamn busy sending some stupid text or checking their Facebook instead of keeping their eyes on the road, engaging in actual human interaction, paying attention to what they’re doing, etc.
Also, internet availability is no doubt far greater than it would have otherwise been thanks to government subsidizing telco companies expanding into areas they otherwise wouldn’t have due to poor profitability. Those fibers don’t pull themselves, and they definitely aren’t free.
Distracted/impaired driving is one of the few things I go ballistic about. Its simply inexcusable.
That was me giving you the finger when you pulled up beside my window and gunned your engine.
Nothing personal.
And if it ain’t true you can’t put it on the internet.
America’s economy should be Thriving w/ such a healthy growth sector. Energy production could be bigger than technology, too.
Instead Obama has so mis-managed it, there are no new jobs and opportunity has all but dried up, unless you’re a rich Wall Street friend of Obama’s, getting bailed out by him w/ the taxpayers’ money.
Betty White is right. It’s a big waste of time.
Childhood friend of yours?
Quote concerning Facebook on SNL.
Out of repect(Obama spelling) unlike Willy, I don’t reveal intimate details of my personal relationships.
Let’s all stop what we’re doing, and make a silent prayer for those who fell before the onslaught of the RIAA at the Pirate Bay… and for Anonymous members captured by the FBI…
We will find you to, euwe max
I don’t exist.
Thank you for being a voice for the voiceless. Your work is making a difference in the lives of others.