Americans are equally mixed about many biomedical advances. Mostly for the Better Technological advances that dramatically changed the way Americans work and live top the public's list of positive achievements during the past century. Indeed, large majorities describe a range of technological advances as changes for the better, with only those innovations involving nuclear power sparking less enthusiasm. Consensus about the benefit of television is especially broad-based. Even less affluent Americans, who generally express less enthusiasm for technological advances, are just as likely as higher income groups to say the invention of television was a change for the better.
Public attitudes concerning a range of social and political changes are much more mixed.
In many cases, groups directly affected by a social change express more enthusiasm for it. And while many Americans see the wider acceptance of divorce as a change for the worse, women are less critical than men. Civil rights are an exception to this trend. But enthusiasm for these new communications technologies divides sharply along generational lines. Americans are much more narrowly divided over other recent advances in science, however.