Technology, Internet, And Entertainment: Changes In The Last Decade

Technology has advanced in leaps and bounds over the last 10 years, and we’ve witnessed developments that we couldn’t have anticipated at the millennium’s start. If you take a look at our list of the most significant technological advancements in the last decade, you will be awestruck.

If technology would not have improved, we could not have accessed movie streaming sites like the Pirate Bay to download movies, videos, applications from anywhere in the world. So, let’s take a look at the massive changes technology, the internet, and entertainment took in the last decade.

Technology Changes

Many experts now believe that technological advancements will take us to a carbon-free planet. Though climate change is receiving fresh attention now, these efforts to find a solution are not new.

Following the recession in 2001, green technology provided a new investment opportunity for tech investors. It resulted in a surge of investment in renewable energy start-ups such as Bloom Energy, which was a Technology Pioneer in 2010.

Tech start-ups have only increased their environmental emphasis over the last two decades. To mitigate the effects of climate change, many people are focusing on efforts that go beyond renewable energy.

While many IT companies continue to focus on illness and treatment research, others have shifted their attention to healthcare delivery. ITelehealthhas become more prevalent in recent years, with several emerging tech companies extending virtual healthcare solutions. In addition, individuals are receiving healthcare using new technologies such as virtual visits and chatbots nowadays.

Internet Changes

The internet connection used to be known as dial-up in the previous decade, which required a telephone line to connect to the broadband. Unfortunately, this meant that you could only use one of the phone lines or the internet at a time, which increased the frequency of disputes in adolescent households.

Needless to say, dial-up was notoriously sluggish. To put this in perspective, a 6MB picture on dial-up would take 15 minutes to download, but it only takes about 2 seconds now.

We may now access the internet totally wirelessly, no matter where we are. WiFi was first offered in the early 2000s, but its demand skyrocketed when WiFi-enabled phones were released in 2007.

We also have internet access via 4G on our mobile phone networks, and 5G is progressively being deployed, making our internet access even quicker. In the last decade, the number of individuals who have access to the internet has also risen dramatically. Only 25% of all UK households had broadband connectivity in 2000, but by 2020, that number had increased to over 95%.

Entertainment Changes

VHS tapes were viral in the early 2000s as a method to watch movies that you had purchased or to record programs that you were going to miss. However, VHS cassettes fell out of favor about 2002 as consumers shifted to DVDs for their superior quality, and by 2008, VHS tapes were almost obsolete.

Netflix began as a DVD rental business, and it wasn’t until 2010 that it began offering streaming services. After that, the world of entertainment changed drastically.

Because of streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and YouTube, fewer people view traditional television. Instead, they prefer to watch programs online to pick and choose what they want to watch and when they want to watch it.

Music was kept on CDs, and cassette tapes, which were purchased in stores and listened to on portable Walkmans, and stereo systems in the early 2000s. Then, in 2001, Apple debuted the first iPod, which allowed you to upload your CDs to iTunes and keep them on a portable device.

The first iPod had a 5GB hard drive to store 1000 songs in MP3 format at 160 kbps. From March 2002, a 10GB variant was offered, doubling the storage to about 2000 songs. Nevertheless, nowadays, almost all music is downloaded or streamed to our phones and computers, and all we need is a pair of earphones to listen to them.

Gaming Changes

Since the last decade, tremendous strides have been achieved in the gaming business, boosted by faster internet rates. In addition, the PS2 was released in the year 2000, and it represented a watershed moment in gaming culture.

Before then, gaming consoles were mainly oriented towards children and teens, with popular N64, Xbox, PS1, and Sega systems. The Nintendo GameBoy was a popular portable gaming device in the early 2000s, while the Nintendo DS debuted in 2004, adding a touch screen to the portable gaming market.

Nowadays, Nintendo Switch and Google Stadia allow you to stream games over wifi and play them on a PC, smartphone, or tablet. Even new gaming operating systems are deployed for Windows 11 to take the gaming industry to the next level.

Social Media Changes

In the late 1990s, the first blogging sites became popular, igniting a social media craze that has lasted to this day. Blogger and LiveJournal were two of the first blogging platforms.

MySpace was one of the first global social media sites created in 2003 and was popular among aspiring artists to upload and share their music. Facebook was founded in 2004 and had 1,000,000 monthly active users before the end of the year.

Today, we have a plethora of social media platforms, such as Snapchat, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and others, that cater to various social networking niches.

It’s unusual to meet someone who is not on social media. Probably, that’s why Facebook has more than 2,499,000,000 daily active users in the third quarter of 2021, which makes it the most popular social media site on the planet.

Putting It All Together

Technology has dramatically impacted our communities and daily lives since the dot-com bubble burst in 2000. It is undeniable that tremendous progress has been achieved in all technology fields during the last two decades. Unfortunately, that makes it hard to predict what will occur in the following two years. For further queries, get in touch with us in the comment box.