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A Decade in Technology: The Defining Moments
Wonk Bridge looks back on a decade of unimaginable change, conflict, and tumult in tech.
This article was originally published on Wonk Bridge
The 2010s are at an end, bringing to a close the first decade proper of what might in years to come be designated as the Early Digital period — a time defined by the development of fully digitised human society, running in conflict and in harmony, and always in parallel, with its terrestrial equivalent.
It has been a time of timelines. The vast polyphony of media in our day abstracts context, and so makes time and history difficult to parse, with the effect that the question of “How will history view this time gone by?”, always all but impossible to answer, is even more tantalisingly difficult looking back at the 10s.
From these timelines, then, a timeline — a decade defined by its technology, told through its technology. What are the key stops on this timeline? What are the moments most definitive of a decade where we seemed to see the digital-real partition re-erected and then swiftly demolished, day-in, day-out?
Before we decide, need to check Instagram…
