"Don Pearce" wrote in message
...
Now this is interesting on the Beeb news web site. A bunch of graphs
showing gadget ownership. Phones, CD players and video recorders have
all peaked, and are on their way down. DVDs and mobiles are just about
plateau-ing. Internet related stuff is still climbing. For how long, I
wonder?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12058944

d

Any survey of this sort depends rather on what the question is, and how it's
answered. For example, the decline in telephone availability is pointless.If
almost everyone has access to a mobile 'phone, then the need for a fixed
telephone, which is I presume what the question asked, goes away. Ditto with
the question of a video recorder: If they mean tape based, then of course it
is in decline, but if they include hard-disc based PVRs, then I suggest that
the availability of video recording will possibly be greater now than
before.

What's sad for me is the decline in CD players, because these will not have
been replaced with networked audio players of the Sooloos or Squeezebox
kind, but have been largely replaced by portable players, of the iPod kind,
or on-line players of the Spotify kind, both playing heavily data-compressed
audio. Nevertheless, both at least (especially Spotify) encourage listening
to a wider genre of music, so are helping to widen musical appreciation,
which has to be for the good.

One question not asked was the availability of a fixed installed HiFi
system, the sort of Must-Have of the 1970s, even if it was a Curry's rack
system. I wonder how many of today's households own such a thing compared
with, say, 1980 or 1990.

S.