The 100-Year March of Technology in 1 Graph
By Derek Thompson
Apr 7 2012, 1:08 PM
ET 51
In 1900, less than 10% of families owned a stove, or
had access to electricity or phones, and the Model-T was still a full decade
away
This is the last
episode in The Atlantic's trilogy on
household spending in the 20th century. First, I followed shifting
family budgets between 1900 and 2003. Second, I explained why
food seems so much cheaper at the dawn of the 21st century. Those two posts
were all about numbers.
But you can't
measure a century's progress by numbers alone.
It's not just that
life expectancy at birth has grown from 49 years in 1900 to 78 today, but also
the quality of our lives has been improved by law (e.g.: new safety and
anti-discrimination laws), by culture (e.g.: women's ascent in college and the
workplace) and by technology.
That's why this
graph below from Visual Economics, which shows the adoption rate of new
technologies across the century, is one of my new favorites -- and a cousin to this
beaut, which Alexis made viral ...
... Click it. Print
it. Take your time with it. That's a lot of linear data. One way to parse it is
to ignore everything at the top and trace your eye along the 10% line:
-- In 1900, <10%
of families owned a stove, or had access to electricity or phones
-- In 1915, <10%
of families owned a car
-- In 1930, <10%
of families owned a refrigerator or clothes washer
-- In 1945, <10%
of families owned a clothes dryer or air-conditioning
-- In 1960, <10%
of families owned a dishwasher or color TV
-- In 1975, <10%
of families owned a microwave
-- In 1990, <10%
of families had a cell phone or access to the Internet
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