The non-linearity of technology evolution

In the early eighties, IBM and Microsoft had just launched a big push for consumers to buy personal computers, when Bill Gates was asked what personal computers were going to be used for, he replied that they could store recipes and do household budgets on their PCs.

Here we are, more than twenty five years later, and while virtually every family has a PC in their home, almost nobody uses it to store recipes or do budgets. In fact, computing, as it is understood in the classical sense, is hardly the function of most computers; instead, the computer has evolved to be a tool for communication, as important as the phone. A variety of communication tools on PCs like email, instant messaging, social network sites like Facebook offer a myriad of ways to communicate.

So, predicting a technology's dissemination on a linear scale, even if it comes to happen, it happens for a totally different reason from the one originally predicted. Also, as the technology permeates society, it joins other technologies and gathers momentum, somewhat like rivulets coming together to become a swift, swollen river.

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