More Than a Third of World's Population Have Never Used Internet, Says UN (theguardian.com) 55
Nearly 3 billion people -- or 37% of the world's population -- have never used the internet, according to the United Nations, despite the Covid-19 pandemic driving people online. From a report: The UN's International Telecommunication Union (ITU) estimated that 96% of the 2.9 billion people who have not accessed the web live in developing countries. The agency said the estimated number of people who have gone online rose from 4.1 billion in 2019 to 4.9 billion this year, partially due to a "Covid connectivity boost." But even among those internet users, many hundreds of millions might only go online infrequently, using shared devices or facing connection speeds that hamper their internet use.
"ITU will work to make sure the building blocks are in place to connect the remaining 2.9 billion. We are determined to ensure no one will be left behind," said the ITU secretary general, Houlin Zhao. The number of users globally grew by more than 10% in the first year of the Covid crisis -- by far the largest annual increase in a decade. The ITU cited measures such as lockdowns, school closures and the need to access services such remote banking as having an influence.
"ITU will work to make sure the building blocks are in place to connect the remaining 2.9 billion. We are determined to ensure no one will be left behind," said the ITU secretary general, Houlin Zhao. The number of users globally grew by more than 10% in the first year of the Covid crisis -- by far the largest annual increase in a decade. The ITU cited measures such as lockdowns, school closures and the need to access services such remote banking as having an influence.
Lucky! (Score:3)
I'm staying more offline for my sanity. It is nice to shed all the things normalized from slow and steady exposure!
Wow! two thirds of the population have used it! (Score:4, Interesting)
We are talking the back blocks of Bangladesh, darkest Africa, the slums of Rio. Old and young.
If the numbers are true that is a huge penetration. An order higher than the penetration of wired telephones.
And the enabling technology? Cheap mobile phones.
Lucky Bastards (Score:4)
Re: Lucky Bastards (Score:3)
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Glad im not the only one secretly hoping for a solar storm so bad it kills the net for many years.
Another Carrington event, and wow, life will change quickly.
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And badly, but hey, the envirokooks will praise their incoming mass ejection coronal even overlords to send the world back into the 18th/19th century.
Re:Lucky Bastards (Score:4, Interesting)
Just stay away from Shitter, FecesBook, Redditards, and other stupid social media sites where you are downvoted for asking a question and criticized for not having groupthink.
High-speed low-cost internet lets us have Linux ISOs, git, discord for friends, Steam, etc.
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That's a good point. Small(er) subs tend to be better moderated and have a better S:N.
The biggest problem with reddit's moderation is that there is no context -- something /. pioneered. +1 Informative, -1 Troll, etc.
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One of the major problems on Reddit is that it's easy for your sub to be taken over by political folks if you don't relentlessly moderate them.
There's a story from a journalist I've told before where he walks into a bar and a couple more guys walk in and the bar owner takes one look at the guys behind them and tells him to leave in no uncertain terms. The journalist asked why and the bartender said he could recognize
Does /. count? (Score:2)
Maybe we should downvote you. [grin]
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You could have their "luck" for yourself if you actually wanted it - it's really easy to unplug your internet connection.
You don't, because for all the nastiness, it provides access to a huge network of community and coordination, an incredible source of boundless useful information, and an enormous range of goods and services that would likely be immensely more expensive if not virtually impossible to discover or acquire via any other means.
One third of all the people in the world have never tasted the pow
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People are fucking up the Interent (Score:3)
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People fuck up everything.
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If you share your lunch with them they might agree with whatever you said, too.
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I'm beginning to think those 37% are the lucky ones
People have been fucking up the internet since 1993.
Before that, the Internet was a utopia, a mostly-polite civilised place, for educated nerds to exchange ideas. Those who broke the conventions were soon brought into line.
Then AOL allowed the unwashed masses to connect. Spam, conspiracy theories and generally stupid arguments followed. The 99% have really fucked it up.
Eternal September [wikipedia.org]
How horrible! (Score:2)
All those people, going about their daily lives, oblivious to everything the internet spews out.
Won't someone think of the children!
Re: How horrible! (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't forget the educational opportunities (Score:2)
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Re: How horrible! (Score:2)
Won't someone think of the children!
Most of the population they list as never being online are under 14. Apparently when the UN wants to get to the kids it's a Noble Humanitarian Cause but when it's a US tech company it's evil and wrong.
Finally, (Score:2)
...some positive news.
Surprised ... (Score:2)
That the figure is actually so low.
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The statistic is overly broad, so broad that it becomes meaningless. If you even used the internet once in your life, maybe in a classroom you fall in that category, does it actually mean you use the internet?
Eternal september (Score:2)
Luxury (Score:2)
Used to be having access to the internet was a luxury, now it is a luxury to be able to escape that. I mean, that is the ultimate status symbol, not having to carry a cell phone.
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It seems like a lot of technologies go through a progression: plaything for the rich, widespread adoption, necessity.
The automobile and the old landline telephone definitely seemed to go through that. Even air travel seems to have almost done it--especially if you need to cross an ocean. OTOH, jet packs will probably always be toys. This is a matter of perspective of course. There are still areas where most people don't own a car and never leave their village.
Re:Luxury (Score:4, Informative)
>There are still areas where most people don't own a car and never leave their village.
New York City?
The good 'ol days (Score:3, Funny)
They have to troll the old fashioned way. [minutemediacdn.com]
millions of would be trolls ... potential wasted (Score:5, Funny)
Why is that a problem? (Score:1)
As many others here already said, those are the lucky ones. The irony is I'm bound to the internet for nearly everything - work, education, business, purchasing, communication, etc. Even when I want to work on something completely non-technology-related I'm forced back to the internet... Want to do plumbing in my house? Go look up building codes online. Want to make a huge bonfire on my property? Go online to get the free burn permit from the county. Want to buy fenceposts for my property? Go online
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Re:Why is that a problem? (Score:4, Informative)
This is all true, and that's the good side of the internet. But as a whole, I'm not convinced that society is enhanced by the internet. Scientific research, mathmatics, etc. sure... those things benefit from rapid, easy exchange of information.
But agitprop also spreads much more quickly and has been directly and indirectly responsible for all sorts of harms - people can now be literally lynched (or immolated, or any manner of other horrific acts) based on a few words posted online stirring up fear and hatred - there are many stories out of India, Mexico, and other countries of this happening, in a way that would not have been possible without the rapid mass communication brought to us by our networked life.
As with many things, there are good parts and bad. Me, I *like* having tech work that brings a healthy income. Working with computers and technology is a lot easier on the body than most of the other things I'm really good at (at least, now that I got out of datacenters it is... racking storage appliances and dressing cables and such is not always easy on the body). But is it an overall net benefit to society? I'm not at all convinced it is... when I compare my high school experience (late '90s) to the high school experience kids have today, it doesn't seem like technology has improved it any - quite the opposite. When I compare political discourse of the late '90s to that today, it certainly hasn't improved. As a society, we're far more polarized and even violent about our opinions than we were 20+ years ago before information, disinformation, rhetoric, etc. all became quite so easily obtained and rapidly spread. :shrug: it's here to stay I guess, unless it gets wiped out by war, EMP, solar flare, whatever... so I try to keep the positives in mind. But I don't think anyone will convince me that those without the internet constantly at their fingertips are truly worse off.
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That is a great post!
Tolerance, acceptance, and integration peaked back in the days when we all still rushed out every weekend to Blockbuster to rent the latest DVD releases, and when we still dialed-up to check our email or 'surf' the web.
Now every almost every news media company twists and tries to put a race, sex, gender, income, political affiliation, etc. spin to most articles they publish.
"Hate first, then ask questions later" will be the motto of 2010-2021+ when historians look back on this s
Set up to fail, then ... (Score:2)
"ITU will work to make sure the building blocks are in place to connect the remaining 2.9 billion. We are determined to ensure no one will be left behind."
This is just NOT a reasonable goal. If nothing else, you have African tribes who still live hunter/gatherer lifestyles with no knowledge of or interest in modern technology or advances. Many WILL be left behind because they're not interested in anything the Internet offers.
The internet (Score:2)
It rots your brains worse than TV. The technology is impressive but the people you meet there. 1/5 stars, would not recommend.
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You might want to realize that if you have running water and electricity at home, along with some other working infrastructure like plumbing and a gas pump that actually has gas whenever you go there, you're already part of the world elite.
Mail them some AOL disks (Score:3)
But... (Score:2)
But, where do they get their porn then???
Re: But... (Score:1)
They buy the neighbor's daughter for 3 goats and a used pencil sharpener. When she grows up, she'll do a better job than all of them.
And that's a bad thing? (Score:2)
If we kept the idiots out, the net could still be like it was pre-AOL.
Going online? (Score:2)
"Going online" is one of many ways the internet is used these days. I'm not sure that opening a browser and surfing the web is the best metric for how much of the world is "connected" in to the internet. Certainly many of those people that haven't "gone online" have been impacted (for better or worse) by the internet in some way, whether by use of cheap cell phones/text messaging, or by banking, or from government aid that it facilitated by internet communications at some point.
That's not to say that all 3
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Quite.
My dad has used the Internet.
But my banking is entirely online, all my bills are online, my car documents are all online, my government portals and taxation is all online, my payslips and forms are entirely online, my purchasing is all reported online to my phone so I can check it in real-time, my phone number itself is "online" (being a VoIP capable phone), I order takeaway online, I did all my Christmas shopping online, I'm able to work entirely online, my entertainment is all online.
That's a world
wow - impressive (Score:2)
Not long ago, we would talk about how many percents of the population have used the Internet. The fact alone that we are now reporting the opposite is simply amazing. Not many other things are so broadly shared among most of humanity.
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