While many Americans are busy Instagramming pictures of their pizzas and fat-facing themselves, millions were still using pagers, dial-up internet and dot matrix printers.In 2012, ten million Americans still had dial-up internet, approximately 10,000 pagers were sold, and fifty million calls were made from pay phones. 13,000 blank cassette and VHS tapes were sold, 350,000 PDAs were sold, and a staggering 20,000 dot matrix printers found loving new homes.
A study by the Consumer Electronics Association said that only about 15% of Americans are considered early adopters. A further 25% jump on the bandwagon and a full 60% are content to sit at home watching TV on their 60"x60"x60" cube while recording Dallas on to VHS so they can watch it after they return calls from their pager.
I'm just shocked that anyone can actually use the internet still with 56.6 speeds. I guess they just have to wait a bit longer for their naked pictures of Pamela Anderson circa 1992 to load. Even with the stats from the CEA, it's hard to grasp just how many people in the US are still using 20+ year old technologies.6% of Americans live in areas that don't have broadband internet access yet. But that doesn't account for the ten million that routinely still (over) pay for dial-up. I'm assuming many of these folks are the exact same ones who decided they needed a new dot matrix printer last year. The only useful way I can think to use a dot matrix is to peel off the strips on either side of the paper and fold them into springy chains.
The 10,000 pagers sold in 2012 also confuses me. I thought drug dealers knew about cheap pay-as-you-go phones that are affectionately called "burners"?! At least the 305,000 pay phones and 50 million calls made on them last year are partially explained by the pager phenomenon. High powered CEOs still have to find that nearest payphone to dash into when the important page comes through from Japan.
10,000 old-fashioned tube televisions also sold last year in the US. I guess that's a sign that many Americans have very big living rooms that need space taken up in them by massive TV cubes. This must explain the 13 million blank cassetets sold in 2012 - people who refuse to adopt the DVR. Even the CEA doesn't track cassette recorders anymore, but apparently 15,000 cassette-based car stereos were sold in 2012. Long live the mix tape!






