Gates Package — page 1111

ubiquitous overnight, but it took ten years to go from 35 percent of Americans owning one to today's level of 85 percent.1 March 2020, on the other hand, was an unprecedented moment when digital adoption took a huge leap forward in many areas. The changes weren't limited to any demographic or specific technology. Teachers and students turned to online platforms to keep learning. Office workers began holding brainstorming sessions over Zoom or Teams before hosting virtual trivia nights with their friends in the evening. Grandparents signed up for Twitch accounts to watch their grandkids' wedding ceremonies. And just another everyone started shopping online a lot more, causing e-commerce sales in the United States to jump by 32 percent in 2020 compared to the year before2. The pandemic forced us to rethink what is acceptable for many activities. Digital alternatives that were once viewed as inferior were suddenly seen as preferable. Before March 2020, if a salesperson offered to make a pitch over a video conference, many customers would have taken that as a sign he or she wasn't serious about winning their business. Pre-pandemic, I wouldn't have dreamt of asking a political leader to spend 30 minutes on a video call discussing how to improve their primary health care system, because it would have been seen as less respectful than meeting in person. Now, when I suggest a video call, they understand how effective it can be and set time aside to meet virtually. Once people learn the digital approach, they generally stick to it. In the early days of the pandemic, many technologies were merely "good enough." We were using them in ways that weren't exactly their intended purposes, and the results were sometimes bumpy. But over the last couple of years--as it's become clear that the need for these