2010-2020: A Decade of Big Tech Changes

The past decade has seen a number of big changes in the world of tech. Ten years ago, tablets, such as the iPad, were just being released. Smartphones became a vital part of our lives and we accepted virtual assistants into our lives and homes. We saw the rise of social media and its potential for activism. We said goodbye to physical ways to watch movies and listen to music and turned to streaming for our entertainment needs.

The Pew Research Center highlighted a number of huge changes that have occurred in the past ten years:

• We rely on social media sites like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter for socializing, news, and political engagement, including activism.
• Smartphones have reshaped how we access the internet, including questions of screen time’s effect on youth and others.
• Data privacy and surveillance are bigger concerns than ever before, as well as online harassment and misinformation.

For more tech-related changes that shaped the 2010s, check out the rest of the Pew Research post.

Curious about what’s driven some of these big changes? Here are some of the big developments year by year since 2010: