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Use of the Internet and Smartphones is No Longer on the Rise in America (qz.com)
For years, the number of Americans who have reported using the internet, social media, and smartphones has been on a meteoric rise. But that rate has slowed to a near-stall. From a report: New data published this week by the Pew Research Center show that, since 2016, that number has plateaued, indicating those technologies have reached a saturation point among many groups of people. The percentage of Americans using smartphones (77%), the internet (88% to 89%), and social media (69%) has remained virtually unchanged during the last two years. "Put simply, in some instances there just aren't many non-users left," the report states.
More than 90% of adults younger than 50 report they use the internet or own a smartphone. This number squares with some of the trends noticed earlier this year by Gartner, a global research firm. The fourth quarter of 2017 marked the first time since 2004 that the market for smartphones declined globally compared to the prior year. People are less frequently buying new phones.
More than 90% of adults younger than 50 report they use the internet or own a smartphone. This number squares with some of the trends noticed earlier this year by Gartner, a global research firm. The fourth quarter of 2017 marked the first time since 2004 that the market for smartphones declined globally compared to the prior year. People are less frequently buying new phones.
It's pretty simple. We won't see any improvement in smart phone and computer usage without advances in technology that cater to the needs of an increasingly illiterate or sub-literate population.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I have never used a smartphone OR the Internet and I never plan to.
Sell your stocks in companies that specialize in taking cat photos now!
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
you would think the amount of cord-cutting would get more multicast video streaming on the net....
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Many companies in the space have stock valuations based on unlimited growth. Normal growth, or stasis, will be a big hit. I do not think investors understand profit and earnings rations anymore.
You can't be on your smartphone more than all the time.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
was set too low.
I'm still rocking a 2 core AMD laptop from 7 or 8 years ago.
I haven't bought a new phone in about 8 years (the cellular company gave me a free one when the last one I purchased wasn't supported any longer)
My needs are pretty simple, my NAS is about 5 years old and my ATOM server (mail/web/DB) is about 9 years old.
Surely we can get more growth by having internet connected tablets for pets or something.
Sure. All for it. First, get rid of Betsy deVos and get someone in there that believes in quality public education for all, not just rich white christian kids.
We don't have to sit around and let our education system continue to go to hell.
I've been hearing this since the 80's and 90's, back when I was in school. The problem I see is people don't want to accidentally pay for some stranger's kid to get a free education. America is a material girl, Living in a material world.
We just need more funding for education in low-income communities.
I had hoped that the information age would improve literacy, and it has somewhat. But I think we've leveled off and can't expect much else to happen without effort (and money). As long as people are OK living in a gated community and can avoid interaction with the lower classes, we won't be too motivated to address our social problems. The problems of poverty and education of the poor have been with us for pretty much all of the 20th century, to one degree or another.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I got a smartphone for my mom. She was the only person on the planet who didn't have one.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Maybe you should point out where we've had quality public education before instead of blaming someone for wanting to try something different. I bet you weren't complaining about the shitty public schools before she came along, and if you don't believe they were shitty then there's no helping you.
Just another day in Paradise
Our education system is doing quite well, despite the nay-sayers. When we look at NAEP scores, which is one of the oldest measures that provided consistency in its content, we see that the schools are doing quite well. This is particularly true when we consider that we test all students. I have taught in other countries. Many other counties have a filtering approach that insures that the less promising students do not advance , and are not able to pull the average down. If a person compares top 20% US to other countries, the differences all but disappear.
The book "Reign of Error" by Diane Ravitch goes into this in much greater detail than I have here (. . . what, a 396 page book is more detailed than a single, short, paragraph . .. who would have guesses that. . . ).
But that same reasoning holds that we can afford massive tax cuts for the wealthiest of its citizen. These tax cuts are limiting our ability to deal with future crises.
The U.S. public education system has been run by leftists for generations, and suddenly the reason that it sucks is because Trump came along in the past 2 years? Give me a break.
We do what we can, but between all the Facebook updates, Twitter, email, Pinterest, Instagram, Reddit, Tumblr etc we have to watch where we're going or we'll get run over by a truck.
Are you just spewing verbal diarrhea, or do you have some citations for your screed?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Disclaimer: I'm not on any sort of social program. I make far too much money.
On behalf of every sane person on the planet: Fuck you you selfish piece of shit.
We pay for plenty of stuff that helps you. In fact, you scream incessantly about how terrible it is if we cut spending on something that helps you personally. The second it would help someone else slightly more, you scream "NO!!! MY MONEY!!!".
Your greed-above-all-else attitude can not die out fast enough.
Don't pretend to know anything about me or my life, asshole, because you don't, and YES, I complained about the public school system before, butr deVos has an agenda.
Thank you for proving that there's at least one other person around here who isn't totally blind.
DeVos is promoting so-called 'charter schools' and funneling money away from public schools with 'vouchers' that will benefit the rich more than anyone else, and the poor will be left with shitty underfunded schools if they have any school at all -- and minorities will be hurt the worst since the vouchers won't cover tuition at a charter school by itself. This alone will destroy the public school system. DeVos is not even qualified to be Secretary of Education, she has NO credentials, Trump had NO business appointing her in the first place.
I went through public school in the 60s and 70s. You're way the fuck off.
Just another day in Paradise
If that's the case, they you have no complaint about someone making an attempt to fix what is clearly broken, asshole.
Just another day in Paradise
Easy. She is not "qualified" as you want. Mainly, you're blinded by your views, not her actual qualifications. I will agree, she has an agenda. By your response, I'm assuming you don't agree with it. I'm ok with that, and what I would like to hear is your opinion on what is good. Please don't same more of the same thing. That's not working well.
By the way, you're not an "asshole" if you state the obvious, which was the US public education system has (is) being run by leftists and needs to be improved. Calling anyone a name just takes away from your argument.
"People are less frequently buying new phones." Maybe the "trendy" "hip" types have found something else to waste their money on that a new iPhone/Galaxy smartphone year after year. It is amazing that a minor upgrade, processor, ram speed, display, warrants prices as high as they do for these things. Minus ad/R&D a 64% margin between build cost & retail price is something most other retailers would DREAM of. It's just "not worth it" wasting that amount of money on a smartphone. I usually walk a large park on Saturday's and Sundays snapping photos of wildlife, flowers & such, and, it just amaze me, the amount of people "tuned out" walking around looking for pokemon' stuff or just looking at their phones, missing out on nature, and how QUIET is is. At least they are outdoors I guess.
You mean the public schools that are lavishly funded and yet underperform year after year and never get any better? And when did we suddenly discover any sympathy for the working class? They're deplorable, remember? We have whole TV shows dedicated to ridiculing them. The sooner they get what's coming to them, the better.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Fuck off. I'm FAR from alone in seeing that DeVos is bad for education and clearly has an agenda. You're just another anonymous bobble-headed Trump supporter whose only motivation is to 'stick it to the libtards'. Eat shit and die, you're the one who lacks credibility.
Listen, buddy: At one point in my life, public schools having failed *me* personally, I thought charter schools/private schools were a good idea. I went to a private school 4th through 8th grade and benefitted thereby. But public schools in this country, *especially* for the Poor, and *especially* for poor Minorities, already is shit, and she wants to take more money away from them, to give to 'vouchers', that only really middle-class and rich families will be able to take advantage of? The vouchers alone won't cover tuition for any of these 'charter schools', so Poor families will not benefit -- mostly poor black families, but also other minorities, and *also* poor white families, but that last is the smallest group that will be affected. Meanwhile blacks and other minorities are hamstrung socially and economically by poor educational opportunities, which is the leading reason they're involved in gangs and crime more often than any other groups. So DeVos, through her shit policies and shit ideas, makes a bad situation worse, creating an ever-widening gap between The Poor and everyone else, one they'll never likely be able to cross. DeVos also is screwing over college students through things like removing protections against predatory lending and collection practicies for student loans. It all smacks of a Dominionist-like agenda, which fits in perfectly with her white 'Christian' background. Add to that her total lack of any relevant career background in education and you start to see that she was appointed to enact an agenda, not help fix and enhance public education in this country, just 'privatize' it, and make it even more accessible for upper-middle-class and rich people through giving them government money they really don't need, meanwhile screwing over families that rely on public schools.
I don't exist to do 40 hours of research or even 8 hours or 1 hour of research for random jackasses on the Internet, so go do you own research -- assuming YOU are not just a TROLL or a Trump supporter trying to screw me up; go look at things yourself with an open mind if you really care at all.
And now if you're just another damned troll, you're fapping furiously because you managed to get me to waste 10 minutes of my life explaining something to you that you don't even give a shit about. Nice job.
Trends clearly showed that internet usage by 2019 would be 135%
Bob Stein, http://bobste.in