Fun Facts About Technology

In 1810, the population of the United States was just over 7 million. That is 4.3 per square mile

In 1910, the population of the United States was just shy of 100 million. That is 26 per square mile.

In 2010, the population of the United States will be greater than 300 million. It will be at least 80 per square mile.

There are over 270 million cellphones in use in the United States. That is almost double the number of landlines.

Now if the average cellphone is 4 inches long, then if we set all 270 million in a straight line, they'd measure out at 1,080,000,000 inches, or 90,000,000 feet, or 17,045 miles. That is more than half of the circumference of the earth at the equator.

And that's just the cellphones in the US. There's another 634 million in China. And 427 million in India. And Germany, Japan, Indonesia, Brazil, and Russia sport numbers well above the 100 million each.

As for the Internet, there are 231 million users in the US (on a good day).

In other words, there are more than double as many folks online in the US today as there were people in the US a hundred years ago.

Now I know that these sorts of stats get cited and bandied about all the time; yet no matter how often I look at them they nonetheless give me shivers.

Because 2110 is going to make 2010 look like 1910. And we've already produced children who will live to see that day. What are we preparing them for?

Fun Facts to Know and Tell.