Similarities

Looking back a decade and a half, many technologies have changed and evolved, but some things stayed the same. For example, email was still used for academic / work related communications. TV shows and sports were just as popular, if not more back then. People still loved to play games on their consoles and computers. Overall, the types of content people pursued has been the same, however, how they consume it has evolved.

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Differences

Despite similarities, there were far more differences observed. Notably, many students then had a landline telephone. And those with mobile phones used them primarily for phone calls as opposed to texting, apps, and entertainment in today's smartphone era. Alot of live cable Television and DVR recordings were replaced by on demand streaming content via the Internet. Music and movies were consumed and shared thru physical media such as CDs and DVDs, as opposed to streaming via the Internet today.

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Reasoning

Many of the changes today can be tracked down to the increase in computing power, miniaturization of devices, and the availability of much faster internet bandwidth. Devices have been getting smaller and more powerful exponentially in the last 5-6 decades (Moore's Law) and the 2000's / '10's were no exception. Smartphones replaced a significant number of desktop-computer requiring tasks and the internet has taken over the role of physical mediums to share and consume data whether it's text, music, or video content. The ease and accessibility of information and media today has allowed us to view what we want, when we want it, with whatever method we so desire.