Population and Technology

In 1810, the population of the United States was just north of 7 million.

In 1910, the population of the United States was just shy of 100 million.

In 2010, the population of the United States will be greater than 300 million.

In 1810, the population of the United States per square mile was 4.3.

In 1910, the population of the United States per square mile was 26.

In 2010, the population of the United States per square mile will be at least 80.

Let's put this all into a little perspective.

There are over 270 million cellphones in use in the United States. That's almost double the number of land lines.

Now, if the average cellphone is 4 inches long, then if we set all those 270 million cellphones lying in a straight line, they'd measure out at 1,080,000,000 inches or 27,432 kilometers. That's more than half 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 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 gonna make 2010 look like 1910. And we've already produced children who will live to see that day.

What are we preparing them for?


Notes:

The numbers for 1810 and 1910 come from the 1990 Census of Population and Housing, "1990 Population and Housing Unit Counts: United States", (CPH-2).