Technology has made some incredible advancements over the past decade and is expected to keep growing over the next. We’ve come a long way from iPhone 4s and chunky laptops. However, when we look at the advancements that have been made over the years, we barely remember all of them because of how quickly they became ingrained into our everyday lives. Today, we will go over the past decade’s significant technological advancements.
The shift from 3G to 4G network
3G networks were a blessing, allowing consumers to call, text, and surf the internet on their phones. With the introduction of 4G in November of 2008, people could connect to others faster than ever before, with an increase in download speeds from 1.5 Mbit/s to 15 Mbit/s. Videos that used to take 5 hours to download took just under a minute. This shift allowed people to promptly surf the web on something other than their desktop or laptop. You could stream videos and music or go on social media or the internet from wherever you were.
Social media boomed
We all know about LiveJournal and FaceBook being staples of the past. Still, as smartphones became increasingly popular, the switch to social media on smartphones was rapid and incredibly apparent. You no longer had to wait until you got home from your day out with friends to upload photos to your social media profiles– smartphones allowed us to use different platforms almost instantaneously.
Not only that, but as social media grew more and more popular, businesses, governments, and even news organizations began to see the benefits of social media as a way to keep people up to date as quickly as possible. It grew from being just a place to have fun to also being a place to advertise businesses, acquire information, and even just capitalize on keeping people’s attention. In fact, in 2019, companies began spending more on advertising on different social media platforms than they did for TV and radio.
AI became more popular
You may not know, but every google search, every app you use, everything you buy online, and everything you view on social media leaves a trail of information related directly to you. As AI became more and more popular in the last decade, that trail of information was able to be processed and analyzed, creating patterns in your movements, thereby giving businesses information to be able to target advertisements correctly and optimize search engines for a specific person.
The past decade has had some incredible changes in technology as a whole. The shift from 3G to 4G changed how we view our smartphones. Social media changed how we use our time and how companies advertise their products. AI has become a staple in how companies use our information. And it doesn’t stop there! Technology is constantly growing and changing, giving us new information and ways to look at how we use our technology daily.