How Does Technology Impact Your Daily Life?

There are no ifs, ands or buts about it: the lives we lead today would be impossible without technology. A quick count of all the screens around you is enough to see that technology is everywhere. It has changed the way we work, play and even raise our children. Thanks to the ease of emails, video conferencing, tablets, laptop computers and other relatively recent innovations today’s offices would be unrecognizable to workers of the past. Even with all these changes, peak-technology still seems forever away. What a wonder it would be if we were just getting started. But living and sharing life online with the ability to communicate instantly across miles has fostered a wave of Americans with tech-dependent lifestyles causing changes in both the professional and private spheres. How does technology impact your daily life? Let’s dive in.

Our Digitized Professional Lives

According to Statista, around 66% of the whole world has access to the internet. This has contributed to virtual teams, employees working together from near and wide over email, messaging, video calls, or some combination of any of the above. People from all walks of life use the internet for work: full-time, part-time, and freelance workers in technology companies, big corporations, and small businesses, located in cities, the suburbs, rural America and everywhere in between.

For most of the last century, communicating professionally meant writing letters, sending faxes, or spending hours on the phone. Not anymore. Email, once the primary means of communication in the modern workplace, has been losing ground to instant messaging applications like Slack and Microsoft Teams Chat. We are communicating more, faster and better than ever before. And employers have been reaping the benefits. The use of technology in the workplace has led to increased productivity. The major influencers? Email, business software, and yes, even cell phones.

Technology Gets Personal

We don’t leave technology at the workplace. In fact, our private lives might be even more tech-enabled than our professional lives. In the 1980s and 1990s, our televisions were often the height of our home technology. Some people had clunky personal computers, a Nintendo for the kids, and maybe even a telephone in their car.

Information from the Census Bureau tells us that 15% of homes had a personal computer in 1989; by 2011 that number climbed to 75%. In 2022, that number reached 94%. We live in a world of laptops, desktops, smartphones, tablets, Apple watches, GPS-enabled cars and more. It wouldn’t be too much to say we’ve formed a dependence. Our technology helps us learn, date, eat, socialize, and so much more.

A New Generation of Digital Natives

Anyone born before the advent of technology in their daily lives is considered a “digital immigrant.” Older generations invented our tech-enabled society, but the generations born in this millennium are the first true “digital natives.” Older generations efforts to push back against the all-consuming digital saturation have gained traction in the past, but these programs may make as much sense to younger generations as getting up from the couch to change the channel on the TV. The genie is out of the bottle, and technology is said to have even changed the way younger generations perceive reality.

People assume they perceive reality as that thing happening just beyond the horizon of their laptop, tablet or smartphone screen. But digital natives are on pace to millennials already outnumber digital immigrants. Reality is just as much what takes place online as it is what happens live in the world around us.

The Hold Outs

There are arguments to make against the way we have fastened ourselves to this technology, to our screens, to the world online over the one we can reach out and feel. Without guardrails or a common sense kit, people of all ages can fall prey to predators in a way that was unthinkable decades ago. It is with these fears that some stand their ground on making changes to the way they live their personal lives, or the way they conduct business. And sometimes they appear to be in the right. In June of 2024, a ransomware hack crippled car dealerships, forcing workers to do once digital processes by hand. But even in this instance, we see the disadvantages of the old ways and the benefits of the new. We can do more work, better and faster with technology. Even taking breakdowns into account, a car will always beat a horse to the finish line.

The Bottom Line

Technology is now so integrated with our lives that going without it seems an impossibility. The impact is far reaching. From the 9 to 5 job to the time spent at home with loved ones, screens are there, as present as a family member. Short of global catastrophe, this isn’t changing. But if humans are anything, they’re adaptable. Whatever the next thing is, it will replace our phones, or the apps we use, or the way we receive information. And probably sooner than you think.