But the pandemic has fueled a rapid surge of worldwide internet users
di Mack DeGeurin
Nearly two-thirds of the world’s population now have the opportunity to waste away their life online just like you. Specifically, around 2.9 billion (or 37%) of the world’s population have still never used the internet, with the vast majority of those people residing in developing countries. Those figures are part of a new report conducted by the UN’s International Telecommunication Union which simultaneously found a rapid increase in new global internet connections, seemingly fast-tracked by the pandemic.
According to the report, the number of people using the internet worldwide surged from 4.1 billion in 2019 to 4.9 billion in 2021. This “Covid Connectivity boost” was likely the result of lockdowns, pivots towards remote work and school, and huge increases in e-commerce and online banking. Overall, global internet users grew by more than 10% in 2020, the largest annual increase in a decade, the report notes.
But these massive increases only tell part of the story. For starters, a significant portion of new internet users during the pandemic (and global internet users generally) connect infrequently and often only through shared devices or via limited, low connectivity speeds. Secondly, there’s clearly a massive digital divide separating rich nations and poorer developing countries. 96% of those still unable to connect to the internet fall in the latter category. There are also huge gaps between urban and rural access. While 76 percent of individuals in urban areas worldwide used the internet, that figure dips down to 39% for those in rural areas.
“These statistics show great progress towards ITU’s mission to connect the world,” ITU Director of Telecommunication Development Bureau Doreen Bogdan-Martin said in a statement. “But a vast ‘connectivity chasm’ remains in the LDCs, where almost three-quarters of people have never connected to the Internet.”
di Mack DeGeurin
Nearly two-thirds of the world’s population now have the opportunity to waste away their life online just like you. Specifically, around 2.9 billion (or 37%) of the world’s population have still never used the internet, with the vast majority of those people residing in developing countries. Those figures are part of a new report conducted by the UN’s International Telecommunication Union which simultaneously found a rapid increase in new global internet connections, seemingly fast-tracked by the pandemic.
According to the report, the number of people using the internet worldwide surged from 4.1 billion in 2019 to 4.9 billion in 2021. This “Covid Connectivity boost” was likely the result of lockdowns, pivots towards remote work and school, and huge increases in e-commerce and online banking. Overall, global internet users grew by more than 10% in 2020, the largest annual increase in a decade, the report notes.
But these massive increases only tell part of the story. For starters, a significant portion of new internet users during the pandemic (and global internet users generally) connect infrequently and often only through shared devices or via limited, low connectivity speeds. Secondly, there’s clearly a massive digital divide separating rich nations and poorer developing countries. 96% of those still unable to connect to the internet fall in the latter category. There are also huge gaps between urban and rural access. While 76 percent of individuals in urban areas worldwide used the internet, that figure dips down to 39% for those in rural areas.
“These statistics show great progress towards ITU’s mission to connect the world,” ITU Director of Telecommunication Development Bureau Doreen Bogdan-Martin said in a statement. “But a vast ‘connectivity chasm’ remains in the LDCs, where almost three-quarters of people have never connected to the Internet.”
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