Some Fun & Slightly Odd Techie Facts
- The average computer user blinks 7 times a minute, less than half of the normal rate of 20.
- The world’s first computer, named the Z1, was invented by Konrad Zuse in 1936. His next invention, the Z2, was finished in 1939 and was the first fully functioning electro-mechanical computer.
- The average child today knows how to use a mouse and play video games better than he or she can ride a bike or swim.
- Bill Gates’ house was designed using a Macintosh computer.
- 160 billion emails are sent daily, 97% of which are spam.
- The first banner advertisement on a website was introduced in 1994.
- Facebook reports over 1 billion registered users. If it was a country, Facebook would have the third largest population in the world.
- The average 21-year old has spent 5,000 hours playing video games, exchanged 250,000 e-mails, instant and text messages, and has spent 10,000 hours on a mobile phone.
- On an average work day, a typist’s fingers travel 12.6 miles.
- There are approximately 6,000 new computer viruses released every month.
- The name Google was an accident. A spelling mistake made by the original founders who thought they were going for Googol.
- The first computer mouse was introduced in 1968 by Douglas Engelbart at the Fall Joint Computer Expo in San Francisco. It was made from wood.
- More than one million domain names are registered every month. Up until 1994, domain names were free.
- Hewlett Packard, Google, Microsoft, and Apple were all started in garages.
- 28% of IT professionals hide their career from friends and family to get out of giving free tech support.
- Sweden has the highest percentage of Internet users at 75%.
- Every minute, 10 hours of videos are uploaded on YouTube.
What Was Your First Phone Like?
When I was a kid growing up in the 70’s, we only had one phone for our entire household. It was a mustard-yellow rotary dial mounted on the wall in the kitchen. My sister and I used to fight over it all the time (she’s five years older, so she usually won). I remember how happy I was when my mom bought one of those extra long twisty phone cords so I could now at least go into the next room to talk out my adolescent angst with some degree of privacy.
In high school, I finally got my own phone in my room. A touchtone! With huge number buttons that lit up orange when you pressed them (I tell you, this phone was all the rage in the mid-80’s). When I started college, I was back to a clunky rotary phone in my dorm. After I graduated, I got a fancy cordless phone, which looked cool but I quickly found I couldn’t go more than a few feet away and the battery died constantly. That was also the era of dial-up Internet, and I was always yelling at my roommate to get off the phone so I could go online. (After waiting excruciatingly long to connect, of course).
Fast forward a few decades later, and I am addicted to my smartphone, texting, the Internet (no more dial up!), Facebook, and my tablet. My kids both have smartphones (nicer than mine), laptops and a PC, although they prefer Instagram and Twitter. Their “first phone” stories will be markedly different than mine.
I often marvel at how far technology has advanced in just my (relatively) short life. I must admit that sometimes I love technology and all of its modern conveniences; sometimes I hate it (especially when it doesn’t work). But I definitely don’t miss getting tangled up in that phone cord.
References: wtfdiary.com, Varnion.com