LIFELINE IT TAKES A LOOK BACK AT THE TECH OF 2002

Fax machines, Ceefax, land lines and digital cameras have all fallen out of favour in the past two decades, according to new research by Lifeline IT.

As part of our 20th anniversary year, we polled 1000 people to find out about the must-have tech items that were a part of everyday life 20 years ago and where they are now.

Compared with 20 years ago, when less than a quarter regularly used email, 96% of people now use it virtually every day. IT and tech that were a regular feature of life in the 2000s but are rarely used now include land line telephones (65%), fax machines (48%), modems (48%) Ceefax and teletext (47%) and digital cameras (36%).

People’s phone habits were dramatically different back in 2002 – nearly four out of 10 didn’t own a mobile or had to share with co-workers, whereas 41% now say it is the one tech item they could not live without, followed by high-speed wireless internet.

We’ll be using our research to launch a new series of ‘Terminated Tech’ podcasts, where we take a look at items that were big in 2002 but are no longer in use. Covering everything from old school mobiles, Tamagotchis and Palm Pilots, we’ll explore why they were popular, what caused their demise and even what these vintage tech pieces are now worth on sites such as eBay.

Said Lifeline IT’s Daniel: “Our next podcast series is going to be a real retro look back into the world of tech. Since we founded Lifeline IT in 2002, we’ve seen so many pieces of tech come and go we thought it would be fun to have a re-cap on what was big at the time.

“The results of the research have given us a great insight into what people were using 20 years ago – we forget that things like Blackberry devices were everywhere back in the 2000s but you never hear of them now.”

The Lifeline IT research also questioned consumers about the future of tech and asked them to make predictions about which IT items will disappear over the next decade. We’ll be bringing you the full results of our IT Trends 2022 research later this month.

The ‘Terminated Tech’ podcast series will launch later this month, along with a new edition of ‘Travel Tech’, giving advice on gadgets and gizmos for the holiday season.

You can subscribe to Lifeline IT podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Player FM, or wherever you listen to podcasts.