How digital media use is changing our lives

There is an entire generation in the workplace that has never known life without the internet. To those that have lived through the digital evolution, the bulk of this article will be unsurprising, but to those born after 1990, some of this may be news.

Table of Contents

When did home internet arrive?

UK homeowners first obtained dial-up internet in March of 1992. This service required a landline to work and was painfully slow and rather expensive. Broadband arrived in 2001, signalling the end of having to choose between a phone call or time spent online.

Wikipedia, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube arrived shortly after that, opening a whole new world of digital communications and creating a new industry – searches for a “digital marketing agency near me” were non-existent before this. Now, companies like https://www.nettl.com/uk/digital-marketing-agency-near-me are thriving.

Internet was not available on a mobile phone until 1996 and the first iPhone was not launched until January 2007.

How these advancements have changed our lives.

These advancements in digital technology have had a radical impact on our lives, including:

We can now keep in touch with friends and family all around the world at the touch of a button and at any time of the day or night. But we have almost forgotten how to communicate face to face. Indeed, studies have found a major decline in human empathy since the year 2000 and this is largely attributed to our new reliance on digital communications instead of human interactions.
We are much more productive now, able to quickly locate, analyse and generate data via the internet rather than relying on reference documents and cross checking historical texts. But we are also much more easily distracted, often checking our phones for social media updates and new emails rather than focussing on the job at hand.
Our health has declined, as online gaming and internet-based communications mean that we typically engage in less physical activity. At the same time, our mental health is taking a bashing, with reported cases of depression and anxiety on the up.