When making a list of things to be thankful for, technology may not always make that list. I have worked with many different types of technology and one thing is for certain, it can be downright frustrating when it doesn’t work.
Remember the printer scene in Office Space where they take the printer out to a field and proceed to destroy it with a baseball bat? I’m sure you can relate. Everyone has been frustrated with technology at some point in life. When it works as intended, no one gives it a second thought – like when you flip the light switch and the lights come on.
While technology probably won’t make your top 10 list of things to be thankful for this year, let’s at least acknowledge that it has made this world a better place to live in.
I thought you might enjoy some fun facts about technology that you may have never heard.
- Google’s name was an accident! It was originally supposed to be Googol, which means 10 to the 100th power, but when they registered the domain name, they entered it incorrectly.
- If you were lucky enough to use a typewriter and got good at it, you know that typing too fast could cause the typewriter to jam. The common keyboard that is used today is referred to as a QWERTY keyboard and is identified by the keys in the top row starting on the left. This keyboard was actually designed to slow down your typing to avoid typewriter jams.
- Google doesn’t mow their yard. Instead, they rent around 200 goats to maintain the grass at their Mountain View headquarters.
- Samsung wasn’t always a tech company. On March 1, 1928, Lee Byung-Chull founded Samsung as a grocery store.
- If you remember the days of listening to the radio instead of watching a TV, you probably think radio caught on quickly. It actually took 38 years for radio to reach 50 million listeners. The iPod reached that in just 3 years.
- Fewer mistakes (37 percent) are made by surgeons who spent more than 3 hours per week playing video games growing up. Also, their operating completion times are 42 percent faster when performing laparoscopic surgery or stitches.
- Have you ever felt your phone vibrate only to realize it’s not on you? It’s called Phantom Vibration Syndrome, and research suggests spending too much time on your phone is the cause.
- With more than 7 billion people in the world, more than 6 billion of them have access to a cell phone. However, only 4.5 billion people have access to a functioning toilet.
- Ever wonder why Facebook is blue? Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, is red-green color blind. This means that blue is the most vibrant color he sees.
- Did you ever notice that iPhone advertisements always have the same time displayed on the screen of the phone? In 2007, Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone at 9:41.
Technology has greatly influenced how we live our lives today. Sure, it can be frustrating at times, but taking a few minutes to recognize the positives it brings to our daily lives can help us be just a little more thankful this year.
