In the fast-paced lives of today’s America, fewer and fewer people are willing to wait for that slow-cooking old-fashioned oven or stove top; nearly seven in ten (68%) now consider a microwave oven a necessity in their lives, more than double the number who took that view in 1996. The increasing reliance on microwave ovens is only one of a number of consumer items that a Pew Research survey found U.S. consumers now consider essential to their daily comfort, convenience or entertainment. Read More

Russell Heimlich  is a former web developer at Pew Research Center.