From A.C. Nielsen in the mid-90s, but still a classic. Didn’t realize that some technologies are aligned with presidents — i.e. TV “happened” during Eisenhower…

Alexis Madrigal:

To draw this out, I transcribed (roughly) from Feltron's chart what year penetration of a technology reached 50 percent penetration. 

Electricity: 1924
Cars: 1925
Radio: 1931
Stove: 1937
Refrigerator: 1942
Telephone: 1946
Washing machine: 1964
Dryer: 1970
Color TV: 1972
Air conditioning: 1973
Microwave: 1985
VCR: 1987
Dishwasher: 1996
Computer: 1996
Cell phone: 2000
Internet: 2001

Smartphones : 2012 (different source)

What you don't see from this chart is all the time these technologies spent in development. In many cases, more time was spent going from zero to one percent penetration than from one to 50. But that's much more difficult to show because you can't say precisely when to start the clock.

Source: 

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/most-people-didnt-have-a-c-until-1973-and-other-strange-tech-timelines/260427/