What tech advances in the last 50 years have had the greatest impact people’s lives?

[peterb]

Your question is "What tech advances in the last 50 years have had the greatest impact people’s lives?"
There's no mention of it being a medicine or health based advance.

Absolutely not, although I did exclude consumer type devices, but that is a thin line. And of course depends on whether you are talking about life - as in daily life - or Life as in Life or Death.

As space_invader said, we will all die, but medical science can extend Life and improve both the quality of Life and life.

[hb904460]

Carbon fibre and HDPE

[kalniel]

Carbon fibre and HDPE

Again, both massively pre-date the last 50 years.

I'll see your historic technology and raise you fire. I think that's had the greatest impact.

[g8ina]

But they're all older than the last 50 yrs aren't they?

ahhhh, Velcro and superglue almost certainly, not too sure of the other two

[Galant]

But the smartphone is just a portable computer, and is the result of converging other technologies to provide a consumer product!

If you took away smatphones, would it have a life or death impact on most people lives?

Where it might have a life or death impact would be in fields such as tele-medicine where specialised sensors for (for example blood sugar) could be monitored remotely in real time by (say) a parent for a diabetic child, or remote heart monitoring by s hospital. So using the communication capabilities to provide potentially life enhancing medical telemetry.

My father has just bought some heating aids which he can control from his phone via Bluetooth (they also play content from the phone!). Not life saving, but have considerably added to the quality of his life and he can tune them to suit the ambient sound conditions for best clarity of speech.

Just to play devil's advocate (because my vote goes to the internet as the most significant technological advancement of the last 50 years) - mobile phones are incredibly new, and although they are just bringing together other tech and media, this may be a case of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. The advancement in conveniences aside, the ability to have a device with GPS and instant communications as well as video and audio recording may well have saved lives or profoundly damaged them. Additionally, science continues to examine the effect these devices are having on human behaviour and brains, especially young brains. We could end up seeing a massive detrimental effect on society in terms of a generation, or more, having too early exposure to phones and tablets. So the jury might still be out on this one.

[kalniel]

OK seriously, if I may stretch just a little beyond 50 yrs, my vote goes to the pill, or combined oral contraceptive pill to be precise. I think it's had an even bigger impact on people's lives than the internet.

Don't know if that counts as technology though.. lifehacking?

[Zak33]

Omy vote goes to the pill, or combined oral contraceptive pill to be precise.

now THAT is lateral thinking and YES it has had immense influence on mankind

Birth control, choice of age of childbearing and spread of STD's because of a lack of protection or caution.

excellent choice.. I will try to think of something equally "curve ball" but that is a brilliant example

[Saracen999]

...

Don't know if that counts as technology though.. lifehacking?

Both probably, especially if "tech" is not defined too narrowly.

But if we're extending the timeframe and including "medicines", how about anti-biotics, anslgesics and anaesthetics?

[hb904460]

Again, both massively pre-date the last 50 years.

I'll see your historic technology and raise you fire. I think that's had the greatest impact.

I would disagree, date of invention doesn't necessarily make the tech advancement. To me the date when that material/substance/tech is first utilised effectively is when the advancement occurs.
HDPE was invented in 1953 but it was another few years before it was first commercially available as pipe.
The same with carbon fibre, it wasn't until the late 1950s that high tensile strength carbon fibre was invented and subsequently started to be used in manufacture.


PEDANT MODE- Fire is not a tech advancement but the effectively harnessing and use of could be.

[Ttaskmaster]

What tech advances in the last 50 years have had the greatest impact people’s lives?
So what real scientific resaearch in the last 50 years as had the greatest impact for the good on humanity?

Sorry to be pedantic, but can I request some clarification on this?
Tech advances, or scientific research... or both?
Impact on lives could be good or bad... though I assume you mean for the better?
Good for people's lives, or good for humanity?

This last I ask, because we're living longer, curing more diseases, living healthier, enjoying very convenient qualities of living and generally having a good time, as far as individual and collective lives go.... but we're also burning resources and expanding across to planet to already-unsustainable levels, all of which I'd argue are having quite a negative impact on humanity as a whole, rather being for the good of it.

No offense intended, just offering something for consideration.... in as serious or lighthearted a manner as anyone cares to take it!

But they're all older than the last 50 yrs aren't they?

I don't believe gaffer tape is...
It's a variant of duct tape but without the plastic covering, and quite similar to duck tape but easier to remove cleanly. I also believe it came last of the three, but history on it is rather sketchy and somewhat apocryphal. The other two tape are WW2 era developments, though.

To me the date when that material/substance/tech is first utilised effectively is when the advancement occurs.

I disagree.
I would suggest that when the effective utilisation becomes widely adopted is the point where the actual 'advancement' really begins. Until then, it's just another cool product that didn't take off, or another idea that nobody ran with.
Case in point - Neither the iPod™ nor iPad™ were anything new, as plenty of other companies had released perfectly effective products of very similar design and nature some years before... and yet it was Apple's™ products that took the world by storm a good decade or two later.