It’s an online world
The decade of 2020 started with a reality which is stranger than fiction. When I think of this pandemic and how it has isolated us from family and friends, I feel a sense of distance but at the same time I am grateful that we are going through this now and not at the turn of the century. I am thankful for all the technology we have today which has helped us be connected to family and friends. So this article is dedicated to all the technological advances we are seeing at the beginning of this decade as compared to the beginning of this century detailed in a table form. In the first column is all about the discoveries starting from year 2000 while the second column for only 2020 which gives information about what technology became really popular mainly as a result of the pandemic
| 2000s | 2020 |
| 2000: Smartphones with cameras were introduced. | E-newspaper have become more popular than hard copy newspapers |
| 2000: First text messaging service for mobile phones was introduced in the US. | On-line shopping became the norm during the pandemic |
| 2001: Wikipedia was created. | Contact less payment became popular |
| 2003: Blu-ray was released in Japan, skype was introduced in the same year. | Zoom usage shot up from 10 million in December 2019 to 300 million by March 2020. |
| 2004: Facebook was started in 2004. | Facebook saw an increase of 50% in usage of its platform during March 2020 |
| 2005: Youtube was created. | Global cooking viewership increased on Youtube during the pandemic |
| 2006: Twitter was launched. | Twitter saw an increase in usership during the pandemic |
| 2007: Apple introduced iPhone with multi touch features. | Apple revenue was predicted to fall due to the pandemic |
| 2010: iPad was introduced by Apple. | Many enterprises had to learn to provide on-line service which used to be a “nice” feature before |
| 2014: Whatsapp was introduced to the public. | Apart from Whatsapp, now we have Signal and Telegram apps for communication |
Overall this pandemic shifted our behaviour more into a virtual environment and has made the internet almost an indispensable part of our lives thus helping us to cope with loss of physical contact. I guess the big question is will we ever revert back to being less reliant on technology and the internet once this pandemic is behind us or will we get used to socializing in the virtual world.
