In today’s digitized world, the internet has become the most indispensable and integral part of our lives. Before the year 2020, some people might be taking the internet as a source of entertainment and recreation; however, last year we found it to be a lot more than just that.
With almost all industries being shut down around the world on account of coronavirus pandemic, it was the internet that helped us hold the economy by a thread and maintain little sense of normality. For most people, it has been the only medium to communicate with friends and family, the only medium to sustain a liquid income flow, the only medium to support daily routine tasks, and the only medium to survive.
This shift in trends of the internet utility brought about dramatic changes in the way people perceived it. Some might even advocate that the coronavirus global pandemic amplified the trend of internet utility to a greater extent.
What’s more, on account of the growing levels of the masses’ interest in the internet, telecom companies have invested heavily to roll out 5G connectivity across the country. This innovation is set to accelerate and better the online user experience. Furthermore, the inclusion of smart devices in our homes and offices has paved a clearer path for internet growth.
States that previously could not enjoy ultra-fast speeds can now enjoy the elevated experience on the web, thanks to the internet providers like Grande that try their best to ensure every U.S. citizen gets quality internet access to conveniently connect with the online world.
In this post, we will discuss the various dimensions of internet utility in the year 2021.
Internet Utility Statistics 2021
As per studies concluded in January 2021, almost 4.66 billion people use the internet around the globe, which is 59.5 percent of the total population.
Around 92.6 percent (roughly 4.32 billion) of this number accessed the internet through mobile devices.
A whopping number of 4.2 billion people use social media actively throughout the world and 4.15 billion of this number access it via social media.
Internet usage in 2021
While there are a lot of reasons to utilize the internet, we have discussed the ones that take up most part of the pie in this section.
- Communication
One of the biggest reasons that the internet has become crucial to life is that it has made communication easy and convenient. Back in the early days of the internet (the 1950s and 60s) all computer scientists wanted was to build up a network that can connect two computers for interlinked communication.
By the 1990s, when the internet went mainstream – blogging, instant messaging, and email became trendy and enabled people to communicate smoothly. As of now, the following are some of the ways that are being employed to communicate via the internet:
Video Calling
Video calling has been popular since its inception, however, it took a whole other meaning in the year 2020 since it was the only mean of interaction for most people. With so many measures to combat the coronavirus, every social and business interaction was forced to become virtual. Social interactions like happy hours, yoga classes, book clubs, etc. were made an online routine.
What’s more, medical examinations were also being conducted online – I had my dental appointments online and if that were not the best utility of the internet, I would not know what is. Some other things that showed their online version were home tours, job interviews, and therapy sessions. While the pandemic has subsided as of now, these online, convenient interactions are here to live on.
One of the first and most widespread forms of internet association, email is still there holding its ground amongst the new technologies like instant messaging, video calls, etc.
In 2021 alone, almost 4 billion people used email around the globe. Around 319 emails are sent around every day of this year and this number is tending to grow by the next year. Some 90 percent of internet users in the U.S. use email, making it one of the most popular internet activities.
Social Media
With the release of websites like MySpace and Facebook, social media started ruling the online world. As of now, there are about 4.3 billion social media users in the world. The coronavirus pandemic further elevated the numbers since social media allowed people to stay connected with each other in the toughest of times.
Team Messenger is a potent team communication tool that can be used by both local and distant teams for office chat, team collaboration, and instant messaging. It offers extremely dependable capabilities to assist the user’s workplace chat experience by providing end-to-end chat encryption. Screen share, Burnout, Forkout, Video calling, Favorite Contacts, Groups, etc. are among the features.
According to Social Media Today, an average person uses social media for little less than two hours every day.
- Work
This one is probably the most important change that the year 2020 brought – remote working has become so normalized that going back to workplaces seems a bit odd now.
Some companies like Twitter have announced to extend their remote working policies forever. Many analysts and business moguls believe that this would increase the overall productivity and spike an increase in revenue generation.
A study shows that around 77 percent of workers want to continue working remotely even if that means a cut in their pays. It has also been concluded that remote working can increase productivity levels by 20 to 25 percent.
- Education
Remote learning had become a thing even before the worldwide lockdown – however, it was taken as a perk or bonus offered by companies and schools to facilitate students having varying schedules.
With this pandemic on our hands, educationists understood the significance and flexibility of remote learning. Many people now believe that full-time remote learning might just be the future of education and a long-term solution as well.
While remote learning has opened new realms of education to students, it has also exposed the underlying problems of inequality in America. Over 4.4 million families with children do not have access to a solid internet service, which is making students fall behind in courses.
- Source of information
As much as people would not want to accept this, the internet is the most used source to get information. Instead of tuning in to a news channel, we can just go online and skim through the paper with great relative ease.
According to a recent study by Pew, about 43 percent of individuals usually get their news from online medium. About 2/3 of U.S. adults consume news content from social media.
In addition to this, people have started getting product information through online channels as well. About 95 percent of shoppers have reported reading online reviews before they make a purchase.
- Entertainment
One of the prime reasons that the internet is used so vigorously is entertainment. From reading books to watching on-demand video content, the internet is all about entertaining yourself.
Video and music streaming platforms are on the rise and got a lot more traction in the year 2020 making the internet even more indispensable.
The last word
The future of the internet is bright. More and more people will find it necessary to be connected with each other on a daily basis, and that trend does not look like it will change anytime soon. Internet access has become so important in our society that there are even some countries considering making internet access a legal right for all citizens. In the coming year, we will still be using the Internet almost everywhere. It will allow us to communicate with each other from anywhere in the world, and entertainment will still be a global industry. However, the dark side of the internet is certain to remain. Cybercrime is a growing problem that will not go away any time soon and we will need to keep our security software up to date in order to protect ourselves against malicious hackers.
