How is internet use and digital technology spreading around the world?
How is internet use spreading around the world? In order to answer this question, we will refer to a study carried out by the creative agency ‘We are Social’ in collaboration with experts from the management platform ‘Social Network Hootsuite’, which showed that in 2016, over half the global population regularly used the web for professional or private reasons.
Compared to 2015, internet use has grown enormously, with a total of 3.77 people (50% of the world’s population) using the net and 2.80 billion users (37%) using social media in 2017. 66% of these people (4.92 billion) use a mobile, 34% (2.56 billion) access Social Networks from their mobile and 22% (1.61 billion) use e-commerce.
Since 2016, internet use has risen by 10 percentage points and the number of social network users has increased by 21%. Those people using the web from a mobile have increased by 5%, while the number of people who use social media on their mobile phone has increased by 30%, meaning that smartphones and tablets are becoming more indispensable all the time.
Regarding this, the study explains that, at the current time, over 50% of people worldwide use a latest generation mobile phone and almost two thirds of them possess one. So, if over half the web traffic originates from smartphones and more than half of mobile connections use broadband, 1 person in 5 has made an online purchase within the last 30 days.
Following our brief analysis of the global spread of internet use, we will consider the current situation in Italy: in our country the number of web users increased by 4 percentage points between 2015 and 2016. Furthermore, in 11% of cases these people use social networks (17% if we include the people who access those networks via a smartphone).
In the Boot of Italy internet use via a PC has fallen by 14%, but that from a mobile phone has increased by 44%, of which 8% is via a tablet and 24% from other devices such as smart TVs, consoles etc. In addition, if 31% of the Italian population declares that they watch online videos every day, Facebook is used by 74% of people, compared to a worldwide average of 55%.
Translated by Joanne Beckwith
