I’m going to start by acknowledging that we’ve opened with an ambitious title. Tech has changed the world in far too many ways for us to count and we can’t possibly break down all the revolutions it has instigated, the swings it has caused… but we can get to grips with some of them!
And recognizing that tech has turned our landscape upside down and inside out more times than we can count… well, it’s useful for people in all areas of life, because it totally mixes up the way that you see the world. With that in mind, let’s check out a few of the biggest changes tech has caused, the real tidal waves that have altered the fabric of our world.
Online Streaming
Online streaming – remember the days of Blockbusters? When if you wanted a movie, you had to actually go out and rent it from a physical store? Wow, it seems a lifetime ago, if you even remember it at all, yet it was what we all did at that time. Now, things have changed just a smidge.
With sites like Netflix running the show (pun intended), suddenly, we can access – at any time of day or night – an almost unimaginable amount of content. No late fees, no “whoops, lost it” to worry about. It’s just you and the content you choose to watch. And if you hate your current pick, moving on to something else is as easy as pie.
It’s not just these giants that let us stream movies and TV shows online, either. Now, you can watch pretty much anything from pretty much anywhere – including live sports content that might not even be available in your country, at least via mainstream channels. There is a plethora of options out there: tech has made viewing content a dream we could barely have conceptualized just a couple of decades ago.
Online Gaming
We can’t talk tech without a nod to gaming, either. Gaming of all kinds has skyrocketed because the technology has let it, and wow, it’s hard to cover all the different avenues this has branched into. We’ve got VR, we’ve got AR, we’ve got online casinos that let you try your luck around the clock and around the globe. Wave goodbye to the brick-and-mortar arcades with closing times and the limits of physical locations… say hello to constantly available, enormously varied, and easily accessible online options.
We’re not joking about this. You’ve got so many choices now! Want to check out a casino online in Canada? You’ll find more games than you would have thought possible when you start looking, from slots to variations of poker, from blackjack to roulette – it’s all right there. There’s something pretty mind-blowing about how this kind of setup has come about, and we’ve walked a really long way from the first online casinos, which were a little clunky and graphics-challenged. Today, we’re looking at swish behemoths that are easily capable of squaring off with the traditional brick-and-mortar giants. Not bad!
It’s not just casinos, of course. Online gaming is on fire everywhere you look, with international tournaments letting players compete with the best of the best and show off their prowess to hundreds of thousands of fans. Indeed, the esports industry is now valued at around 1.4 billion dollars. That’s one way of saying this is big business now… and of course, it wouldn’t even exist without the constant push to make our technology bigger and better with every year that passes.
It’s not just on the big screens, either. Mobile gaming has become huge – both for traditional games and for things like casinos. People love the convenience factor of being able to play anywhere and sure, it’s not going to wipe out big-screen gaming and vast RPG worlds, or online competitions, but it’s another facet that our ever-expanding technological brilliance has created.
Wearable Tech
Remember laughing when Google came up with the idea of wearable computers in the form of geeky-looking goggles? Yeah, it was a weird start, but now, look around in any busy place and count the number of people with smartwatches, FitBits, Bluetooth headsets, even smart jewelry… there’s a lot.
Wearable tech didn’t seem all that promising to begin with, but there’s no question that it’s now firmly grasped its own niche and is holding on tight. It’s not even a very small niche! Around 225 million people were thought to be using smartwatches in 2024. That’s huge.
Smart, wearable tech is a massive change because it’s there with us all the time, constantly providing updates, letting us access the internet, offering up content. It’s even more convenient than the ubiquitous smartphone, and there’s no querying the fact that it’s here to stay, and is only going to get bigger, with wearable medical devices looking a likely avenue to branch into soon.
