A glance at the table provided reveals the proportion of families with electronic appliances in New Zealand during the period from 1997 to 2002.
In general, while digital cameras, TV sets, personal computers and dish-washing machines experienced an upward trend in terms of popularity over five years, video saw a downward trend.
Of these electronic gadgets, it seems that the washing machine was the most functional since almost all households owned one in both 1997 and 2002. Yet, by far the most significant change to take place during this period was the increased popularity of digital cameras from 2% in 1997 to 39% in 2002 as well as personal computers from 46% in 1997 to 90% in 2002. Similarly, the number of users of dishwashing machines climbed from 52% in 1997 to 82% in 2002.
In stark contrast, however, utilization of the video became less prevalent among families since its users declined from 86% in 1997 to 78% in 2002.