When I Was Your Age...

So, Russell put this paper on my desk the other day and I briefly looked at it while he was staring at me, waiting for me to read it. So, I read it and I was, honestly, a little surprised. I have read many things talking about how times have changed with social media, and blah, blah, blah.

I read lists of how the 18 year old today is experiencing different things than when I was 18 almost 15 years ago. They've never had to roll down a window. They've always had bottled water. All that. But, this list put some things into perspective....

It showed me that life is connected all over the globe. We can no longer think that what we do in our community does not affect other communities. The steps we take today are documented, blogged about, commented on, facebooked, tweeted, re-tweeted, etc.

So, keep that in mind. When looking at the choices you make as a community, as our community, think about how that can positively or negatively affect those around you.

So, here you go…judge for yourself…hope I don’t get sued for posting this….nah….

· Years to reach 50 million users: Radio 38 years; TV 13 years; Internet 4 years; IPOD 3 years
- Facebook reached 100 million users in less than 9 months
- IPOD applications downloads hit 1 billion in 9 months

· If Facebook were a country it would be the worlds 4^th largest behind China, India and the US.

· There are over 100 million active users on YouTube

· Americans have access to 1,000,000,000,000 web pages; 65,000 iPhone apps; 10,500 radio stations; 5,500 magazines; 200+ cable tv networks.

· More video was uploaded to YouTube in the last 2 months than if ABC, NBC and CBS has been airing new content 24/7/365 since 1948 (when ABC started airing).

· The number of unique visitors ABC, CBS and NBC get every month collectively: 10 million (these businesses have been around for a combined 200 years.)

· The number of unique visitors to MySpace, YouTube and Facebook get ever month collectively: 250 million (none of these existed 6 years ago.)

· 95% of all songs downloaded last year weren’t paid for.

· Wikipedia launched in 2001. It now features over 13 million articles in more than 200 languages.

· Cisco’s Nexus 7000 data switch could move all of Wikipedia in in .001 seconds.

· 2009 US Department of Education Study revealed that on average online students out performed those receiving face – to – face instruction…
- 1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum

· How many text messages does the average American teen send each month?
- 584? 1,150? 1,612? NOPE. 2,272
- Brady James of Los Angeles, sent 217,541 text messages in March 2009

· Right now 93% of US adults own a cell phone

· The mobile device will be the world’s primary connection tool to the internet in 2020

· “The computer in your cell phone today is cheaper and a thousand times more powerful and about a hundred thousand times smaller than the one computer at MIT in 1965. So, what used to fit in a building now fits in your pocket. What fits in your pocket will fit inside a blood cell in 25 years.” - Ray Kurzweil

· Predictions are that by 2013 a super computer will be built that exceeds the computation capability of the human brain.

· The US Department of Labor estimates that today’s learner will have 10-14 jobs…by age 38!

· According to former Secretary of Education Richard Riley…the top 10 jobs that will be in demand in 2010 didn’t exist in 2004

· Well over 1,000,000 books are published worldwide every year

· A Google book search scanner can digitize 1,000 pages every hour

· Newspaper circulation is down 7 million over the last 25 years

· In the last 5 years, unique readers of online newspapers are up 30 million

· 1 our of 8 couples married in the US last year met online

· The first text message was sent in 1982. Today the number of text messages sent and received everyday exceeds the total population of the planet

· The amount of new technical information is doubling every 2 years…for students starting a 4 year technical degree this means that half of what they learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study

I think Bob Dylan was very right…”times they are a changin’.”