Pretty much everyone has a cellphone or smartphone these days. Go ahead, try to find someone without one.
And about eight in 10 households both here in Minnesota and nationwide own some kind of computer, whether it's a desktop, laptop, smartphone or tablet.
This shift makes the turn of the 21st century -- back when only half of households had internet access and smartphones didn't exist yet -- look dramatically different from today's ultra-connected world.
Data released this month from the American Community Survey shed new light on digital device ownership. Rounding this up with some other data sources, we can paint a picture of how saturated with personal technology our society has become since the days of dial-up, landlines and bulky laptops.
As we've reported previously on high-speed internet access, there are certainly demographic patterns to who is using the latest devices, and Minnesota's trends are similar to national numbers.
Smartphone ownership, for instance, has become so common that majorities across demographic groups have one, according to the Pew Research Center.
In fact, Pew found cellphone ownership – which includes smartphones – has reached 95 percent across the country. The lowest rate of cellphone ownership is about 80 percent among those 65 years of age or older.
As for which phones people own, 2015 data from research firm Chitika Insights shows iPhones accounted for about 48 percent of Minnesota's smartphone traffic, suggesting a narrow majority use devices powered by non-Apple technology like Android or Windows.
Only about 10 percent of households on the state and national levels don't own any smartphone or computer at all. This is significantly lower than the quarter of American households that lack broadband internet access.
Drawing upon national numbers, we can also see racial disparities in device ownership, with 20 percent of black households and 16 percent of Hispanics not having any type of computer, tablet or smartphone at home. Similar trends are found in studies focused on Minneapolis.
Black and Hispanic households also tend to own smartphones at higher rates than they do other computing devices.
A majority of Americans also own tablets now, a huge change from when only about 3 percent owned one in 2010, the year Apple released the iPad.
Not all types of personal devices have become more common though. Pew found only 19 percent of adults owned an e-reader like a Nook or Kindle, a significant drop from 32 percent in 2014.
Rates of desktop computer and laptop ownership, meanwhile, have been stagnant for more than a decade, as has ownership of console gaming systems like PlayStation, Wii and Xbox.
But some older technologies have proven to be fairly resilient, as Pew also found 40 percent of Americans -- mostly millennials -- still owned MP3 players like iPods and Zunes.
Regardless, technological innovation marches onward, and the next frontier of device ownership includes wearable items like smart-watches and fitness trackers, along with internet-connected home devices like thermostats, televisions and kitchen appliances known as the internet of things.
More than 6.4 billion such devices have been connected as of 2017, and the research firm Gartner projects that 20 billion will be installed by the year 2020.
