Adults agree that the expansion of high-speed Internet has had the greatest technological impact on society over the past decade. A Zogby International interactive survey polled 1,950 adults from December 8 to December 10, 2010 to ask them what technology they found to have made the biggest difference in their lives.

High-speed Internet came in first place at 24 percent, followed close behind by Facebook at 22 percent, and Google settled for third place with 10 percent. Men and those over 55 said high-speed Internet has had the greatest impact on society while women and adults under the age of 55 found Facebook had the most impact. Of the technologies most said they cannot live without, high-speed Internet came in first at 28 percent, e-mail was second at 18 percent, while Facebook only grabbed 3 percent among all adults. 15 percent of young adults (aged 18-24), however, said they cannot live without Facebook.

24 percent of Americans believe the greatest technological advancement for the next year will be in home entertainment while only 16 percent believe it will be in general computing. In the next decade (by the year 2020), the following will take place:

  • 43 percent of Americans believe we will see regular use of stem cells and cloning techniques to create human organs for transplant
  • 40 percent of Americans believe we will see computer chips implanted in people to monitor their health
  • 40 percent of Americans believe we will see robots capable of performing manual labor jobs
  • 36 percent of Americans believe we will see virtual reality incorporated into home entertainment

Zogby International said slight weights were added to region, party, age, race, religion, gender, and education to more accurately reflect the overall US population. The data was given a margin of error of +/- 2.3 percentage points.