Technology Of the Decade: High-Speed Internet By A Nose

Over the past 10 years, what technological invention had the greatest impact on society?

If you said high-speed Internet connections, you were in line with a recent survey from Zogby International. Twenty-four percent of the nearly 2,000 respondents said high-speed internet had the most impact. Facebook was a close second at 22 percent. Google finished third at 10 percent.

Within the results there was a gender and age divide. Females and those under the age of 55, 27 percent rated Facebook as more important, while the same percentage men and those over the age of 55 found it to be high-speed internet. Young adults; 18-24, found Google to actually be the second most important invention of the last ten years at 25 percent. Twenty-eight percent of those young millennials picked Facebook.

For the technology they cannot live without it wasn't nearly as close: 28 percent of those surveyed said high-speed internet was indispensible while 18 percent said email. Facebook was only at three percent for all adults and 15 percent for young adults.

Many Americans, 24 percent of those surveyed, say the next great advancement in technology will come in home entertainment. General computing was second in this category at 16 percent. Over the next 10 years, 43 percent of Americans think the use of stem cells and cloning techniques to create human organs for transplant will be a regular occurrence. Forty percent think robots will be created to perform manual labor.

It isn't surprising that high-speed internet access was rated so highly; shopping on line has become an ever-greater part of peopel's lives, and applications such as Facebook depend on high-speed connections to work properly.