1990s

On January 1st, 1990, you were very unlikely to find a computer in most households, and everyone had a VCR and a box TV (think the 80s).

On December 31st, 1999, a lot of households have dialup computers, and early laptops exist. Internet chatrooms and sites like AoL exist, but the internet is still viewed as a new cool novelty thing. It is very common to have a flip phone. DVD players are now common in households, though a lot of people still have VCRs.

2000s

January 1st, 2000 picks up right where 1999 leaves off.

On December 31st, 2009, computers are now in every household, and it is also common to have laptops, social media sites like Facebook are popular while Twitter is starting to blow up and MySpace starts falling off. Touchscreen smartphones exist in their early stages, but most people still carry sliding phones. DVD players are still common, but are being outphased by Blu-ray.

2010s

January 1st, 2010 picks up right where 2009 leaves off.

On December 31st, 2019, everyone has a touchscreen smartphone and social media such as Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter are dominant. Facebook is viewed as a site for old people and is not hip anymore. Computers and laptops are in every household. Blu-ray is still a thing but most people now watch movies on streaming services like Netflix, Disney+, etc.

Probably the 1990s:
- Airbags become standard in cars
- Electric Windows overtake Window winders
- CD players become standard in cars
- Dial-Up Internet Access becomes common in schools & workplaces
- VHS Camcorders become cheap
- Audio Cassettes become obsolete
- The true rise of the CD format for music
- Composite Video replaces RF
- The rise of 3D Video Game Consoles
- CDs overtake Cartridges for video games
- Video Games start using real audio
- Analogue sticks become standard in console gaming
- PC gaming becomes drastically more popular
- Early online video gaming (mainly restricted to the PC)
- Video games on PC and in the arcades adopt rounder polygons
- The true rise of portable video gaming (thanks to the Game Boy)
- The rise of Caller ID and cordless landlines
- Cellphones become popular
- Dial-Up Internet Access becomes common in homes
- People are now able to communicate with people instantly worldwide, catch up with recent events, shop online, do research, get all sorts of entertainment and many more things through the Internet.
- Personal Computers become common in homes

1990s

On January 1st, 1990, you were very unlikely to find a computer in most households, and everyone had a VCR and a box TV (think the 80s).

On December 31st, 1999, a lot of households have dialup computers, and early laptops exist. Internet chatrooms and sites like AoL exist, but the internet is still viewed as a new cool novelty thing. It is very common to have a flip phone. DVD players are now common in households, though a lot of people still have VCRs.

2000s

January 1st, 2000 picks up right where 1999 leaves off.

On December 31st, 2009, computers are now in every household, and it is also common to have laptops, social media sites like Facebook are popular while Twitter is starting to blow up and MySpace starts falling off. Touchscreen smartphones exist in their early stages, but most people still carry sliding phones. DVD players are still common, but are being outphased by Blu-ray.

2010s

January 1st, 2010 picks up right where 2009 leaves off.

On December 31st, 2019, everyone has a touchscreen smartphone and social media such as Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter are dominant. Facebook is viewed as a site for old people and is not hip anymore. Computers and laptops are in every household. Blu-ray is still a thing but most people now watch movies on streaming services like Netflix, Disney+, etc.
Not everyone, I have friends who still not have a mobile phone or a home computer!

It was a photo finish between the '90s and '00s, but I'll edge it to the '00s. The OP mentioned the box TV at the start of the '90s. When Y2K hit, HDTVs were still luxury items and a few years away for most people, and most still had CRT TV's. But in 2009, almost nobody had a tube TV and had a widescreen TV. The 2010s did provide some nice upgrades to the HDTVs though as that decade progressed.

Regarding music tech, I'd also go with the '00s as well. CDs started to become popular actually in the late '80s, and even in 2000, the CD was still king, even though cassettes were just about dead. But in 2010, few people were listening to CDs anymore and were using either early MP3s like the iPod, or their smartphone if they had one and started to simply stream on sites like YouTube.

Although PCs had their greatest growth during the 1990s, they weren't an insignificant part of the 1980s, even if they were much more primitive. However, laptops had their biggest growth during the '00s and started to become just as powerful as PCs when 2010 hit. CD-ROM also was a lot less important in 2010 compared to 2000 as the Internet changed the way of PC gaming to the cloud. '

Car technology probably changed the most in the 2010s though compared to both the '90s and '00s. My 2008 Nissan Altma has a port for MP3 players, but still has mechanical guages except for the trip computer, which had been around since the early '80s in many cars. Onboard navigation systems were only found in luxury cars even in 2010, whereas they're pretty much standard features nowadays. It wasn't uncommon in the 2000s to go from paper maps in 2000, to a GPS in 2005, to a navigation system either on a smartphone or a car in 2010.

Finally, a lot of the groundwork laid in new telecom tech in the '90s resulted in the shifts that peaked in the 2000s: the decline of paper phone book use in favor of the Internet, the decline of payphones, and the abolishment of long distance charges at a domestic level.

In addition, most movies switched from film to digital during the '00s (remember that black circle that would appear on the upper right hand corner?), in addition to going from Netflix by mail to streaming in 2010, as well as many video stores closing down as the '00s came to a close, compared to being abundant throughout the '90s.

There are also little things like bulletin boards being replaced by video monitors in many public places; this seemed to happen equally during the 2000s and 2010s. Chalkboards seemed to give way to whiteboards in schools during the 2000s the most and caused overhead projectors to become obsolete as well.

2010s because streaming became much more preferred than downloads, although the 2000s did start off by killing off many analog formats.

Probably the 1990s:
- Airbags become standard in cars
- Electric Windows overtake Window winders
- CD players become standard in cars
- Dial-Up Internet Access becomes common in schools & workplaces
- VHS Camcorders become cheap
- Audio Cassettes become obsolete
- The true rise of the CD format for music
- Composite Video replaces RF
- The rise of 3D Video Game Consoles
- CDs overtake Cartridges for video games
- Video Games start using real audio
- Analogue sticks become standard in console gaming
- PC gaming becomes drastically more popular
- Early online video gaming (mainly restricted to the PC)
- Video games on PC and in the arcades adopt rounder polygons
- The true rise of portable video gaming (thanks to the Game Boy)
- The rise of Caller ID and cordless landlines
- Cellphones become popular
- Dial-Up Internet Access becomes common in homes
- People are now able to communicate with people instantly worldwide, catch up with recent events, shop online, do research, get all sorts of entertainment and many more things through the Internet.
- Personal Computers become common in homes


The 90s IMO I feel was the decade in which individual YEARS begin to have their own vibes rather than just decades. Just comparing 1991 and 1993 and 1994 and 1996 and 1999 side by side and they almost feel like completely different eras.
The fact the internet was becoming massive and evolving at an unbelievably rapid pace alongside computing and technology and culture in general definitely helps. To be honest, the early 90s, mid 90s, and late 90s feel like entirely different eras to me, simply due to just how unbelievably rapid things were changing (in contrast to more coherent decades from prior).

In terms of invention, 90s.
In terms of usage, however, 00s.

Why?

In the 90s, that's when most of the next generation techs were invented (e.g. DVDs, broadband internet, etc.)
However, it was only in the 00s that these new techs started overtaking the old tech (e.g. DVD only surpassed VHS in 2002, Broadband only surpassed Dial-up in 2005, etc.)

As for the '10s, you don't really see new inventions, but mostly just huge upgrades of things that were already invented.

"My theory about advancing technologies as both our savior and our doom?" - Olaf (Frozen 2)

Obviously, I'm gonna have to go with the '90s. In 1990, the World Wide Web existed, but it wasn't exactly accessible to the public yet. Computers (especially those with Windows 3.0) were mostly used for local reasons like work. Video games were a mixture of 8-bit and 16-bit graphics, and floppy disks were used side-by-side with CD-Roms on computer monitors. VCRs were still the norm for home video.


1999 really felt like a different world with 32/64/128-bit game consoles (PlayStation, N64, and Dreamcast), Windows 98, dial-up Internet, and DVDs were widely available.