Beginning with the landline telephone and radio in the early twentieth century, Americans have acquired new technologies as a means to communicate beyond their immediate home.

Now, roughly a century after the introduction of the radio, new technologies continue to enter the market and provide Americans with alternative means of communication. Though the technology of today is much more advanced than that of a century ago, the simple purpose of communication remains largely unchanged.

Regardless, the communication of today is not the same as that of a century ago. Americans are using more communication technologies, for more purposes, than ever before. It seems as though technology is always present, ever-changing, and expanding still. What led to this moment? And what can we learn about the communication technologies of the past to better understand the opportunities and threats that technology poses today?

Adoption of communication technologies

Americans’ adoption of new communication technologies into the home is far from a new phenomenon. Communication was both unicast and broadcast. Unicast communication technologies, including the landline, provided a one-to-one communication experience. Broadcast allowed for a single source, like a radio or television network, to communicate to multiple individuals or households simultaneously.

What, then, is different about Americans’ present-day adoption of communication technologies compared to that of the past?

For one, the rate at which technologies are entering the market has increased. The multiline chart above visualizes the share of households adopting different communication technologies over time. For much of the twentieth century, three communication technologies dominated the market: landline telephones, radios, and color televisions. Beginning in the 1990s and into the twenty-first century, new technologies like the cell phone, computer, and smartphone were introduced into American homes in quick succession, with few years to separate their introductions.

The ubiquity of today’s technology, then, may be due to the sheer quantity of technologies being introduced to American homes, often separated by only a few years at a time.

Alternatively, consider the many years separating the introductions of technologies like the radio and the smartphone. The rates of adoption for each technology are visualized in the chart above, represented by each line’s slope. The rates of adoption for both radio and the smartphone, their introductions separated by nearly a century, are not entirely dissimilar. It’s interesting to visualize Americans in the late 1920s buying radios at the same rate that Americans purchased smartphones in the early 2010s.

Though two technologies may relate to one another in their rate of adoption, this doesn’t imply their journeys were altogether similar. Consider the added nuance of a technology’s year of introduction, related to its rate of adoption by American households. The slope chart above visualizes the share of households that adopted different technology 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 years after their entrance to the market. While radios and smartphones had similar rates of adoption in their early years, smartphones were adopted into a greater proportion of households after five years on the market. Similarly, more households had adopted cell phones 15 years after their introduction than color televisions or computers at their respective 15-year mark.

Why may it be the case that some technologies are more readily adopted following their introduction than others? One possibility is the ease with which a technology can be embedded into the household. Wireless technologies, like the radio, color television, or cell phone, were adopted more readily than wired technologies like the landline phone. While not included in this visualization, color television was more quickly adopted than cable television. These examples illustrate how the necessity of complex installation networks can hinder a technology’s adoption into the majority of American homes.

The significance of internet access

The most important network that today’s technologies rely on is broadband internet. To understand how different communication technologies are adopted into today’s households, it’s important to consider the role and history of internet access in the United States.

Access to the internet in American homes progressed dramatically in the 2000s according to data from the Current Population Survey (CPS). In the beginning of the decade, approximately half of each state’s population had access to broadband internet in the home. By the decade’s end, roughly 75% of each state’s population had access.

By 2020, internet access is now widespread across the country. The American Community Survey (ACS) collected data on the share of households in each county with access to broadband internet in the home.

The availability of broadband internet in a community can impact residents’ interest or ability to adopt new communication technologies. Just as with landline telephones and cable television, the presence of a network to facilitate a technology’s purpose is key to the rate of its adoption. This is particularly resonant for today’s communication technologies, as many rely on broadband internet access in order to function properly.

Once an internet connection is established, the potential for new communication technologies flourishes. This has been the case since the early- to mid-2010s, when smartphones were estimated to be in over half of American households.

Given that so many of today’s technologies rely on an internet connection, the growth in internet access over the last twenty years has surely played a role in Americans’ ability to adopt technologies. It has also expanded the uses offered by different technologies and, in turn, the amount of time Americans use them.

Time spent with communication technologies

Not only has the presence of communication technologies grown, but today’s technologies are demanding more of our time and attention. The ubiquity of today’s technologies, then, may not be because we have more technologies to choose from, but rather because today’s technologies demand more of their users.

According to the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), time spent using various communication technologies has increased since 2003. Of all Americans surveyed on the amount of time they spend each day doing certain activities, the time spent on activities that involve communication technology, including watching television, using the computer, or using the phone to connect with family and friends, has increased.

In the stacked bar chart above, the blue sections of bars represent watching television and movies. Dark blue represents listening to the radio, light green represents listening to music, light red represents using the phone to connect with family, and dark red represents using the phone to connect with friends.

The average time Americans spend watching television and movies, for example, far surpasses the time spent on other communication-related activities. Recall that the data points used in the stacked bar graph above are yearly averages; that is, data collected from individuals who reported that they spent zero minutes doing a single activity are included in the total average minutes.

The multiline chart below excludes those individuals who reported non-use (i.e. zero minutes) from the yearly averages. Watching television and movies still surpasses time spent on other activities, though the chart below more clearly visualizes the trends in time spent on other communication-related activities.

It’s noteworthy that, while Americans are spending more time using communication technologies than ever before, they’re using them in different ways. These differences are reflected in adjustments to question wording in the ATUS, and help to explain the patterns over time.

The ATUS updates their definitions of each activity to reflect how Americans are spending their time. Consider the example of ‘watching television and movies’. What was once a clearly defined activity with little room for interpretation, now is more inclusive of the different ways Americans use the medium; streaming movies on the internet is considered to be ‘watching television and movies’ rather than, say, ‘using the computer’. Similarly, ‘listening to the radio’ now includes ‘listening to podcasts’ in its definition.

Another important update, given the rise in adoption of smartphones, is that to the definitions of ‘using the phone’ to connect with friends or family. The activity, as defined by the ATUS, is not exclusive to telephone calls. It now includes facetime video and texting, for example.

This expansion of definitions to include more interpretations of an activity may be one reason for the increase in time spent using communication technologies. The COVID-19 pandemic, admittedly, may be another reason as to why there was a spike in time spent on select activities in the years 2020-2021.

Regardless, data from the ATUS shows that Americans are spending more time doing activities that involve communication technologies. As such, the ubiquity of technology may be better explained by the fact that technology is being used for a wider variety of purposes, which demand more time and attention on the part of the user.