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The State of the Internet

Here we take a look at exactly who is using the Internet the most, how they are using it and how much the amount of usage is increasing. At a glance, we can see that there are the same number of men and women who use the Internet. However, their age, educational background and level of income may influence how much time they spend online.

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Posted on Feb. 2, 2010
jonny b

i want japan's internet. period.

Posted on Feb. 2, 2010
Miss Cellania

Why two pie charts?

Posted on Feb. 2, 2010

Another interesting demographic trend: women between the ages of 30-39 create a disproportionate amount of UGC online.

Posted on Feb. 2, 2010
ysbee

I almost love this infographic.
Thanks Dr. @JimMacMillan, for your Tweet of wisdom, always!

Posted on Feb. 2, 2010
Larry Taylor

Does infrastructure size and/or commercialization create legitimate and/or false limitations to bandwidth access in the U.S? We protect gas-guzzler car sales by limiting consumer access to legitimate alternatives despite the hypocrisy. Do we do/allow the same thing in Internet access? I'd like to know.

Posted on Feb. 2, 2010

Interesting (but not surprising) that the younger crowd (late teens to late twenties) have the highest penetration of internet use but the lowest penetration of bloggers (thought the age ranges in the two charts - internet use vs blog use - are not identical)

Posted on Feb. 2, 2010
Rajeev ranjan Singh

This is nice analysis, could i get from India analysis.if possible please post it.

Posted on Feb. 3, 2010
Gail Hyatt

Fascinating. My favorite stat: How do bloggers describe their style? 75% Sincere. Love that.

Posted on Feb. 3, 2010
Lady Maryann

Why is Tweens (age range 9-16) not taken into account? We play, blog, twit and research in the internet using desktop computers, laptops and mobile phones. We log on everyday. I have been blogging since 2008 and i know a lot of people my age who have been doing that years before me. While I am sure we will not beat the 18-29yos, we might give the middle-agers a running.

You don't think so? Check out how much richer we've made the owners of Virtual Worlds that caters to tweens.

Count in the tweens and your results might change drastically.

Posted on Feb. 3, 2010
@robydyck

Lady Maryann has a point. Sincere ratings at 74% for bloggers adds up since they are in the 'older' age category and we are serious about using the internet wisely, to assist others improve their lives and basically, for honourable purposes.

Posted on Feb. 3, 2010
Mark

What an awesoem and classic mistake on the map. The arrow of the Netherlands points towards Denmark. Here I was thinking it was an urban legend that people think they are the same :P

Posted on Feb. 3, 2010
np

I'd be interested to see where the country data came from. As far as I know, Canada and the Bahamas are usually in the top 5 in terms of internet penetration. But I guess it all depends on who gathered the data.

Posted on Feb. 3, 2010
opica

Can you explaint the "Which age uses internet the most stats?" Because internet penetration in the world is cca. 25 %, so how could it be, that 70 % of people aged 50-64 use it. It also doesn't make sense if we try to interpret the data as 70 % of all internet users are aged 50-64. So what does it mean?

Posted on Feb. 3, 2010
opica

I'm a bit confused about Which age group uses internet the most? section. There's no way 70 % of 50-64 age group uses internet if 25 % of world population uses internet. http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm Also, we cannot interpret data as 70 % of internet users are aged 50-64, so what does it actually mean?

Posted on Feb. 3, 2010
Bary

I'm seeing this touted as a great infographic. On the otherhand, I see it as an example of how small errors or gaps in data taint the potential effectiveness of a nice visual.

1) It's unclear where(what country/countries) does the first group of percentages come from? I guess if you find the "comes from Internet and American Life study" cite near the end of that "section", you can assume it's the US, but that could be made clearer in the headlines and by better sectioning.

2) The problem with the Netherlands arrow pointing to Denmark.

Even just these two quibbles made me want to look more for errors than for whatever it was the graphic was supposed to be telling me.

Posted on Feb. 3, 2010
Charles Knight

Bravo!

You obviously get data visualization.

Posted on Feb. 3, 2010
bumbleclot

Great information. I can't believe how fast Japan is.
I linked to you on my blog. www.bumbleclot.com

Posted on Feb. 3, 2010
mike

If you have to explain how to interpret the data (i.e. describing the significance of the dots), then it's already overly complex.

the dots are distracting - the differences would be much easier to discern on a simple bar chart.

Posted on Feb. 3, 2010
Tazmik

Miss Cellica: Notice the 2 Pie charts add up to 104% therefore combining the 2 does not make sense. How, you ask? Well there would be a percentage that own both (desktop and Laptop) and a percentage that owns neither.

Posted on Feb. 3, 2010
Tazmik

Mike, Some people learn visually better than others. I like this format, at a glance I can tell the percentage and it gets away for the non-colorful, boring Excel format.

Posted on Feb. 3, 2010
Bill

"Internet Penetration" sounds dirty but really isn't

Posted on Feb. 3, 2010
JuAn

Great infographic! Very illustrative... although I'd like to know, what are the information sources that you've used. Also I think it would be good to add the "numbers" (not only the percentage) in order to have a clearer idea of the "state".

Posted on Feb. 3, 2010
Jon

Minor mistake. "Which age group uses the internet most?" 50-64 is missing a line of white dots. It looks like 70/90 use it in that group.

Posted on Feb. 3, 2010
Josh

"Gail Hyatt
Fascinating. My favorite stat: How do bloggers describe their style? 75% Sincere. Love that."

Hahaha.. I was just thinking that.. Yea... RIGHT!!!!

Posted on Feb. 3, 2010
letty

@ josh, and do you believe them being sincere ;)

Posted on Feb. 3, 2010

@JuAn at eh bottom of each section the sources are listed. PEW, Technorati, and Akamai appear to be the main sources

Posted on Feb. 3, 2010
sean malarkey

Awesome - nice work. Can I post this on my blog with a link back here?

Posted on Feb. 3, 2010
Jeff

All of the small-dot representations (e.g. for which age groups use the internet how much), have 11 columns.

Also, you've represented 70% (percentage of 50-64-year-olds using the internet) as 70/90 dots.

Neat idea, but probably work on counting before publishing.....?

Posted on Feb. 3, 2010
Jeff

Sorry, I mean 77/99 dots, obviously (giving 77%); as opposed to 89/110 (81%) for the previous group.

Obviously my math skills could be sharper as well...

Posted on Feb. 3, 2010
jonny goldstein

Enjoyed this infographic. I would like to see a few of the countries to the right of the USA on the chart showing comparative broadband speed. Yes, the USA has slower broadband than Japan and Korea: who are we faster than?

Posted on Feb. 3, 2010
leo I

¬¬ weon si por una gallina te dan 5 y un dia... POR HACER UNA DE LAS PEORES PELICULAS DE LA HISTORIA DEBERIA NO SSER MENOR A ESO... como el culo... el director es totalmente limitao y el guionista creo que podria estar catalogao como IMBECIL con tendencia la mediocridad... wn que mal rato ma ensima la vi entera aver si mejoraba en algun momento la weba... que rabiaaaaa

Posted on Feb. 3, 2010
leo I

lo sieno me equivoque de cualquier manera...les dejo el dato... no vean The Steam Experiment.... por nada del mundo!!!!! (agradeceria que el webmaster... borrara mis comentarios ;P)

Posted on Feb. 3, 2010
Nihonside

I have Japanese internet... It's amazing. Movies downloaded in seconds.
Oh and its cheaper than internet in the US.

Posted on Feb. 3, 2010
Manion

I am unable to visualize the Janpan's internet spped!

Posted on Feb. 3, 2010
Jack

I'd like to say that in Downtown Portand, OR I regularly cloaked 24mbps, im in Tampa FL now and am lucky to get 3mbps. where you live matters! the US is Big! It's not Japan, that is the size of one of our 50 states!

Posted on Feb. 3, 2010
Robert

Nice, but you're pointing at Denmark, not the Netherlands.

Posted on Feb. 4, 2010
Hans

Yeah... that's painful, pointing at Denmark instead of the Netherlands...

Posted on Feb. 4, 2010
Binta

My husband and I received at home( few months ago), 6 persons: 65 years old swedish ladies for a small training " How to create & maintain a website" they were all well organized , asking for very clever questions and all of them had a brand new laptop, I was very impressed!
I'm not surprised to see scandinavian countries on Top of the list!

Posted on Feb. 4, 2010
Art

@Ms Cellania, some people own both. 46% + 58% makes it difficult to show 104% of a pie.

Posted on Feb. 4, 2010
Frans

Since 1960, "kilo" as a prefix for 1000 is written with a lowercase 'k'.
Similarly, the lowercase 'm' has always been the sign for "milli", one-thousandth. The prefix for "mega", one million, has always been the capital 'M'.

Using these prefixes wrong does not really add to the scientific credibility of the site, or to the statistics shown on it.

Posted on Feb. 4, 2010
RavenclawGirl

Nice review/stats :)
I think people age 11-17 (or people that are younger than 18 anyway) should also be included, though. Maybe next year? :)

Posted on Feb. 4, 2010
RavenclawGirl

And dude, that's not the Netherlands, that's Denmark! (use google maps or something, :P).

Oh, and did I say the graphics also look great? Hm, I guess I didn't, but now I did :).

Posted on Feb. 4, 2010
Surftipps

Very intressting Post. I like the way the grafics look. Thanks for that

Posted on Feb. 4, 2010
Jim Stiner

Thanks for the nice visual, but I agree with Mike. The dots are a bit distracting - it would be much easier to understand using a simple bar chart.

If anyone creates onet, please let me know

Jim

Posted on Feb. 4, 2010
marvin nubwaxer

millions and millions on lobbyists whining for laws to protect the usa internet providers and millions and millions spent on deceptive and vague at best advertising ( . . .$ for the first 3 months type gimmicks) instead of investment in infrastructure.

korea, may i borrow a cup of your internet, please

Posted on Feb. 4, 2010
Jack

Omg not fair!!!!! I want to be Japanese!

Posted on Feb. 4, 2010
Eduardo Mello

Nice job, but:
Where was thies search made?
Was it world wide users?
Where is the credits?

Posted on Feb. 5, 2010
sabine

japan fly

Posted on Feb. 7, 2010
Daekle

From a scientific standpoint, this data is meaningless. It states "74 percent of men use the internet" but doesn't state precisely from what group this was collected. Is it 74 percent of all men on the planet? or 74% of american or european men? or possibley 74% of men on the planet use the internet?
I seriosly doubt that many regularly use the internet. Possilbey 74% have used it in their lives but "use" suggests regular use.
Its pretty but meaningless.

Posted on Feb. 7, 2010
schoobs

@Frans

Since the internet, lowercase "m" in mbps has meant mega"bits", not "bytes." An uppercase "M" would represent megaBYTES. Same with kilo, lowercase means bits, upper means bytes; confusing, isn't it? When talking about connection speeds, we usually estimate in megabits and kilobytes, hence the lowercase "m" and uppercase "K" used in the infographic.

I apologize for all the quotes but I'm afraid I don't know how to italicize here.

Posted on Feb. 8, 2010
Shahrooz

Ha Ha! What about Iran?! I live is Iran but the fastest Internet speed is 512 KBPS! and the persons older than 40 don't know what Internet is!

My DSL Speed is 256kbps, I pay for it every month about 12$ (USA). (12$ is my income of 12 hours working!) and I have only 1.5 gigabyte transfer limit at a month!

I prefer to use smoke for communication!

Posted on Feb. 9, 2010
korosh

خوش به حالتان که اینترنت به این خوبی دارید

Posted on Feb. 9, 2010
Jon

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/the-cost-to-offer-the-worlds-fastest-broadband-20-per-home/

We have sucessfully concluded why Japan outdoes everybody. Today, the Web tomorrow the world, Pinky! (But in Japanese, so: "今日インターネット、明日世界, Pinky!")

Hats off to the fact it only cost them $20 a household.
-www.taxfiling.net

Posted on Feb. 9, 2010
wanbar

well' i got 1 mb from my govt ans this is not enough

Posted on Feb. 9, 2010
wanbar

well' i got 1mb and this is not enough at all

Posted on Feb. 10, 2010
anuconvo

Japan internet for me too!!

Posted on Feb. 10, 2010
Phire Wunjo

State of the State of the Internet 2009

82% Dot charts
7% Bar charts
7% pie charts
4% maps

Posted on Feb. 11, 2010
Ed

I would like to point out the following to everybody that is jealous of the speeds attainable in other countries.

1. These countries are not hampered by insane telco regulations.
2. These countries are small in size which costs enormous amounts less to install infrastructure.
3. These countries mostly have new infrastructure whereas ours has been around for a very long time and they are marginally upgraded at times to try and cope with the amount of usage.
4. Just an interesting fact is that less than 10% of internet users use 90% of the available bandwidth. These are your gamers and file sharing gurus. Most others browse a couple of websites and send email which are low bandwidth activities. However I will say that online TV is spiking this trend as more and more people catch their missed shows online.
5. Never fear - Broadband companies are very aware that they are starting to lose their monopolies to other start-ups that will provide what the people want and will soon step up or go under.

Posted on Feb. 11, 2010
fschuetz

I love it! Wonderful graphic...
;-)

Posted on Feb. 14, 2010
TheBigHenry

@Miss Cellania

Because there is overlap (some people have both).

Posted on Feb. 16, 2010
turkishguy

Good job, but there is missing point here I think:):) how about Turkey? where is it in these graphics:):)it leads among other countries in terms of users of internet:):)

Posted on Feb. 19, 2010
FT

Today in Turkey,
9 women were stoned to death, 6 witches where burnt and 3 deformed childred put down.

Turkish holidays r us!

Posted on Feb. 25, 2010
Wondering

What's the stats on shoppers on the internet?

Posted on March 3, 2010
sfs

I would also love to see a version of this that's global - both collectively and natl comparisons - rather than US specific. I loved the two graphs that did have global comparisons; the most illuminating of the project.
Appreciate the work that went into this. thanks.

Posted on March 23, 2010
ImagingDesk

I have a collection of visualization charts for internet users and uses. All charts tell more words than you imagine.

http://www.imagingdesk.com/technology/charts-of-internet-users-and-uses-for-website-owner/

Posted on March 26, 2010
iTalib

Interesting & useful stats. i did translate your infographic to Arabic :
http://www.italib.net/2010/03/2009-state-of-internet.html

Posted on March 30, 2010
EntityPhoto

Interesting stats

Posted on March 31, 2010
Stacey Soleil

Wow! What intriguing stats...thanx for sharing! :)

Posted on April 16, 2010
EmersonKeats

...looking at those graphics makes me recall the old often quoted "moore's law" from the late 1990's. all facets of the internet continue to exponentially improve, it would seem, at a moore's law pace- whether it be mbps or penetration. would be nice for the US to catch up to the more advanced european and pacific rim countries.

Posted on April 30, 2010
Rosco

The question is not why two pie charts...but isn't 58% + 46% = 104%?! lolz. Great info none the less!

Posted on June 24, 2010
Aza

Nice going having the netherlands arrow point to fucking Denmark, it's not the same country...

Posted on July 1, 2010
aaronbiglzzz

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Posted on July 8, 2010
Krunal Soni

This is really nice information me, i am doing blogging since 2004 and must who where people are growing. so this information really helpful to me.

Thanks

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