Teens and technology: ’90s, noughties and now (infographic)

15 May 2015

It’s 20 years since Oasis were number one with Some Might Say – which you listened to on your Sony discman – Apple was behind some truly clunky computers, and the Nintendo 64 came along and destroyed its competition. A lot has changed…

Modern communication and entertainment devices are incredibly far removed from what we had back in 1995.

I still remember my brother showing off what I, an uninterested child, felt was a truly embarrassing invention: the printer.

Apparently in 1995, 86pc of Americans had a video recorder at home, five per cent used computers for schoolwork and MTV’s golden era saw TLC’s Waterfalls crowned video of the year.

Now 71pc have TVs in their bedroom, they spend almost a working shift looking at screens, and music videos tend to revolve around grimy, unenjoyable parties where singers tell us how rubbish our lives are in comparison to theirs. The joy.

TeenSafe has created this wonderful infographic, which we spotted on Techinfographics, comparing the teen of 1995 (think Xena, Sliders, Pinky and the Brain), 2005 (think House, Lost or Deadliest Catch) and today (think something with Simon Cowell and bad singing).

For example, it shows that half of us were already downloading music by 2005, with one million DVDs shipped out by Netflix every month.

Today, we listen to music on smartphones, through services such as YouTube and Pandora, and television programmes are increasingly being monitored through tablet computers.

True-Facts-About-Teens-And-Media

Gordon Hunt was a journalist with Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com