The Internet and Extended Lifespans and Ease of Life

The life of Americans has changed a great deal in the last thirty years in many positive ways. While there were some aspects of a slower pace and a more personalized world thirty years ago, there are very many positive changes that have occurred in quality and longevity of life.

Advancements in both medicine and technology have made the world a much different place than it was just three decades ago. The average lifespan for Americans is on the rise and technology has advanced at a shattering pace in almost every sector of business and commerce.

Understanding the Benefits of Medical and Technology Advancements

Overall, today’s average lifespan has increased significantly for people of almost all socioeconomic backgrounds. Statistics show that on average when compared to the 1970’s, people are living 6 to 8 years longer than their grandparents did.

When analyzing many of the positive changes that have extended the average lifespan, most of the extended lifespan comes from major advancements in medicine. However, advancements in technology has often been the catalyst that has allowed for medical advancements to be made in most areas of medicine. Therefore, it can readily be said that internet technology has played a significant role in improved modern medical care in significant ways that are positively affecting human lifespan. Medical analysis, medical data sharing, medical imaging and more are just some of the areas where technology and the internet have played a vital role in helping people live longer.

Overall, with the advancement of internet service providers and internet technology, most mainstream life including the sciences and medicine have marked extensive positive changes because of technology and the advances in the internet.

Today, the modern internet has affected how:

• People Get an Education
• Records are Kept
• Weather is Tracked
• The World Communicates
• People Transfer Information
• Money is Moved
• News is Transferred
• Banking is Done
• Transactions are Completed
• How People Get Their News
• Consumerism is Handled
• Research is Completed
• Medical Conditions are Diagnosed and Treated

In fact, because of how many areas the Internet has affected the lives of people, it is almost too difficult to imagine how the world survived without it. It is quite shocking to just look back and realize that just three decades ago, the internet was a novelty that most of society lived without.

Who Uses the Internet?

Today, the use of the internet is so widespread, that instead of gauging the percentage of people that use the internet, they had to complete a study on the percentage of Americans who do not use the internet. In the spring of 2018, a newly released Pew Research poll showed that only 11% of adult Americans do not use the internet in their lives on a regular basis.

The two groups that are less inclined as adults to use the internet include, people over the age of 65 and people with less than a high school diploma. Other core groups that do not use the internet as much include, people who live in rural areas and people who make less than $35,000 a year in annual income.

However, as a caveat to this information, it should be noted that of the twenty-two percent of rural Americans who do not use the internet, most said it was not for lack of want. In most cases, people who live in rural areas stated they have difficulty getting proper access to the internet. Much of this is due to a lack of cabling and transmission towers in the more remote areas of the country.

One of the striking results of the survey, was that only one third of adults over the age of 65 do not use the internet. This is a major shift from just a decade ago. Today, there are widespread classes that are offered for seniors to learn how to use the internet. Many public libraries offer courses as a community service and senior citizen centers across the country have been offering classes to their members for the last decade. These efforts have significantly altered how senior citizens view the internet and whether they use it.