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Have you ever paused to think about how much time we actually spend staring at screens? On average, that's about 6 hours and 40 minutes each day and to put that into perspective, it’s roughly 101 days a year. That's nearly a third of our lives immersed in digital worlds.
At this point, it's fair to say our phones might know us better than our parents do. But despite all that screen time, humans fundamentally crave connection. We’re emotional beings, often seeking moments of meaning in our interactions. This is exactly technology should feel humane and in today’s time it’s so vital. It goes beyond merely functional interactions and creates genuinely relatable experiences. In a world increasingly mediated by screens, authentic human connections through tech have never mattered more.
Accelerating into the future
At this point, it's fair to say our phones might know us better than our parents do. But despite all that screen time, humans fundamentally crave connection, we’re emotional beings searching for meaningful interactions. This is exactly technology should feel humane and in today’s time it’s so vital. It goes beyond merely functional interactions and creates genuinely relatable experiences. In a world increasingly mediated by screens, authentic human connections through tech have never mattered more.
Consider how differently our parents experienced technological change. Radio took about 30 years to reach 50 million users. Fast forward, smartphones hit a billion users in just 16 years. Today, AI has swiftly emerged into a $400 billion market, evolving right before our eyes at lightning speed, thanks largely to the robust digital infrastructure we've already laid down.
The rate at which we adopt new technology is astounding, but it also prompts an important question: are we designing tech to serve us, or are we inadvertently shaping ourselves around tech?
How design disrupts the world
Back in 2015, OpenAI began as just another modest research lab, exploring AI without fully anticipating the profound shifts it would spark. But they made a distinctive choice which has changed how we adopted this form of technology. OpenAI’s choice to prioritise chat over search with ChatGPT wasn’t just a technical decision, it was a shift in design. It stemmed from a belief that conversational AI could fundamentally reshape how people engage with technology, moving beyond the idea of AI as just a smarter search engine.
By making it feel like a conversation, something we’re already wired to do, OpenAI made the experience more intuitive, engaging, and versatile. Chat is a familiar behaviour, so adopting this new form of technology felt natural. That design shift didn’t just improve usability; it reshaped their business and rippled across the entire AI landscape because they tailored AI to fit seamlessly into our lives. This had an exponential impact, ChatGPT reached a million users in just five days. Faster than any digital product in history at the time.
To put that into perspective:
Instagram got there in 2.5 months
Snapchat took about 10 months
Netflix took around 3.5 years to hit one million users