Hi. My name is Lindsey Douglas and I wanted to talk to you today about how consumers are using technology and what impact that has on their lives.

Technology has advanced greatly since the birth of the internet. Gone are the days of dial up when you couldn’t use a landline whilst online, I can still remember the noise it used to make whilst connecting. The time it used to take to access anything was dreadful and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to dread the phone bill coming in at the end of the month… the internet wasn’t cheap to access. It wasn’t always easy to access either, where and when you wanted it and internet cafes sprung up all over the place.

As technology was moved on, we now live in a world where handheld devices allow us access online wherever we are whenever we need it either via Wi-Fi or 4G and now 5G where it’s available.

In 2020 only around 5% of the world’s population were using the internet and this has grown quickly over the last 20 years and we’re at a point where nearly 70% of the population are online at some point. That’s around 5.5 billion people – that’s a HUGE number with a lot of zeros.

Not only is the internet easier to access but it is also faster making it easier to use. Between 2007 and 2017 the average internet connection speed increased by over 500% hitting a peak in Q3 of 2017 of 16.9 megabytes per second. However today speeds are averaging around 50 Megabytes per second. This has also had a significant impact on the type of material that we access online. This has hugely helped the consumption of video online – something that just wasn’t possible when the internet first came into being. Now we have video sharing sites such as YouTube and TikTok and streaming sites for movies and TV programmes such as Netflix and Amazon Prime.

As I mentioned earlier, we now have access to many devices on which to get online. In 2020 Smartphones accounted for 60% of the device usage for internet access – laptops came in second at 16% followed closely by tablets at 12% and desktop computers with just 8%. This is really showing us that being able to access the internet on the go from anywhere is crucial to our everyday lives.

How we search for information has changed over the years too – we are all familiar with search engines and Google still dominates as the go to search engine of choice. We are also looking for review sites to find out what other consumers think – we’re always being asked to leave reviews online and these are important to businesses and products. A bad review can do untold harm. We also use social media to look for information – we join groups on Facebook which bring together people with shared interests to discuss and exchange information.

Let’s have a look at what we buy online when we get there. We use websites and apps to access what we’re looking for. 55% of respondents to a survey showed that clothing remains the most popular items to buy online with attractive returns policies make this a great way to buy without leaving the comfort of the sofa. And what better thing to do whilst browsing for your next pair of new shoes than order a delivery to help satisfy your appetite. There is pretty much nothing that you can’t buy online these days and sometimes you can get all that you need from just one site.

Let’s talk about how Amazon has changed since it started out. In 1994 Amazon was an online store that only sold physical copies of books but it very quicky changed and in 1998 started selling CDs and DVDs. It introduced 1-click pay in 1999 and started selling toys too. They moved into clothing, food stuffs, created their own smart speaker and launch Amazon Prime for viewing. Along the way it’s also moved into Digital books making sure it holds on to some of its heritage. Amazon now sell over 250 million product lines!!

Our consumption of videos online has grown enormously too mainly due to availability via companies like YouTube and TikTok but also due to improvements in internet speeds as I talked about earlier. One of the easiest ways to demonstrate this is to look at the length of time Netflix subscribers spend on the platform. Back in 2009 each subscriber barely spent any time watching videos with less than 1 hour being viewed. In 2020 that had increased to 3 hours per subscriber. There’s obviously more content available and of better quality as time goes on so keep us engaged with them.

Finally, I wanted to look at trends in accessing social media platforms and although Facebook continues to be the market leader you can see that in last 3 years the growth of TikTok has been steep and it now becomes the 2^nd most used social media platform. As we spend more time online, we are looking for information and entertainment in bite sized chunks and so videos are becoming shorter and snappier to satisfy that appetite.

To summarise we have better access to the internet than we did 20 years ago through the advent of technology and internet availability. We can access it o n the go and through a variety of devices, most of them mobile. We have access to a wealth of information online that has made our decision making easier although sometimes it does make it harder as there’s just too much to sift through to get to what you really need. Video is becoming more important not only for entertainment but for education and information as well.

Technology has made a huge impact on how we live our lives and most of that is positive. But you must question whether perhaps it has gone too far and where it will stop.

Slideshare link: Assignment 2 Task 1 (slideshare.net)

YouTube link: Lindsey Douglas – YouTube