Conclusion
This chapter summarizes the previous ones and discusses possible future directions for communication technology and its effects on society and culture.
• iPhone 12
• US Internet usage 1990-2019
• TV hours watched in US 1950-2019
• US newspaper circulation 1940-2018
• US population 1940-2018
• Internet websites graph
We have now covered five and a half thousand years of technology, from the simplest writing media to the most complex digital devices in current use: from clay tablets to smartphones.
In those places where writing first appeared at the beginning of recorded history, the most advanced form of communication has now taken hold. China, with almost a fifth of the World’s population, had more than 850 million Internet users in 2020, more than half of all users on Earth. India was second, with 560 million users. Egypt and Iraq (formerly Mesopotamia) are considered part of the developing world, and have lower percentages of Internet use, but still in 2020 there were almost 50 million people online in Egypt and 21 million in Iraq, roughly half of each country’s population.
This is the trend in almost every country, with worldwide connectivity reaching more than half of humanity by the second decade of the 21st Century, a trend that will likely keep growing at a rapid pace. Barring some unforseen change of circumstances, it appears that virtually the entire human race will soon be digitally connected.
Tech giants
I Tried to Live Without the Tech Giants. It Was Impossible. Kashmir Hill, The New York Times, July 31, 2020.
Book publishing
Alienated, Alone And Angry: What The Digital Revolution Really Did To Us. Joseph Bernstein, buzzfeednews.com, Dec. 17, 2019.
Google: There Are 129,864,880 Books in the Entire World. Ben Parr, mashable.com, Aug. 5, 2010.
Books. Max Roser, ourworldindata.org, 2013.
How Many New Books are Published Each Year? (And Other Related Books Facts). John Jennings, theifod.com, Jan. 17, 2019.
Predictions of the Internet
Early Predictions of the Internet Date Back to 19th Century Sci-Fi. Eleanor Tremeer, gizmodo.com, Jan. 4, 2019.
7 Sci-Fi Books that predicted the internet. Amy Purdon, webafrica.co.za.
Internet user data
The top 500 sites on the web. alexa.com.
Internet users for the United States. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
20 most popular websites for 2021. freshysites.com, Feb. 17, 2021.
10 most popular websites in the world. gadgetsnow.com, Nov. 2, 2020.
Internet Stats & Facts (2021). websitesetup.org.
Total number of Websites. internetlivestats.com.
How many active sites are there? netcraft.com.
March 2021 Web Server Survey. netcraft.com.
The Moz Top 500 Websites. moz.com.
Most Visited Websites in 2021. oberlo.com.
How Many Websites Are There Around The World? [2021]. siteefy.com.
How Many Websites Are There? Martin Armstrong, statista.com, Oct. 28, 2019.
Number of internet users in the United States from 2000 to 2019. Joseph Johnson, statista.com, Jan. 27, 2021.
Social change
Empathy and the Novel. Suzanne Keen, Oxford University Press 2010.
How Was Life?: Global Well-being since 1820. J. van Zanden et al. OECD Publishing 2014.
Leveling the Playing Field: The Democratization of Technology. Rod Scher, Rowman & Littlefield 2016.
Revolutions in Communication: Media History from Gutenberg to the Digital Age. Bill Kovarik, Bloomsbury Academic 2011.
The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood. James Gleick, Vintage 2012.
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Last update: June 2021
Content related to this chapter’s topics will be periodically posted here.
The Internet
I Tried to Live Without the Tech Giants. It Was Impossible. Kashmir Hill, The New York Times, July 31, 2020.
As an experiment, the author tried not to use any technology provided by Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple.
He predicted the dark side of the Internet 30 years ago. Why did no one listen? Reed Albergotti, The Washington Post, Aug. 12, 2021.
Philip Agre, a computer scientist turned humanities professor, was prescient about many of the ways technology would impact the world.
In 2021, we need to fix America’s Internet. Sean Hollister, The Verge, Dec. 17, 2020.
In this article, the author discusses systemic problems with Internet access and cost in the US, and with the FCC, the government’s regulatory agency that oversees Internet service providers.
Last update: May 2022