It’s sometimes hard to keep up with the latest technology, and the internet is no stranger to evolution. From the early forums and travel sites of the 1990s to the flash games of the early 2000s to today’s social media landscape, each new iteration looks and functions differently. As the web continues to transform, it’s important to keep up to date on the history and current workings of the net. Since it was recently National Internet Day, there’s no better time to learn. Here are some of our favorite obscure internet facts in 2022.
Over 30 Percent of the Population Isn’t Online
It’s hard to imagine not having access to the world wide web, but a sizable percentage of the global population still doesn’t use the internet regularly or has never used it at all. According to DataReportal, approximately 5.03 billion people use the internet daily — about 64 percent of the planet’s population. That leaves over 2 billion people without internet access.
That number, however, grows smaller every day. The digital divide is shrinking, but people in rural areas may still be without high-speed internet. The global population also counts children too young to be online and senior citizens who have never used a computer. Regardless, it’s almost certain this figure will change in 2023, but how much is uncertain.
A Quarter of All Websites Are in English
It isn’t that surprising, since English is the most-spoken language in the world if you count both native and non-native speakers. Statista reports that 25.9 percent of all websites are published in English. Chinese was the respectable runner-up, with a sizable 19.4 percent. China has the most internet users, and Mandarin is the most-spoken native language.
Google Dominates Multiple Markets
Google is the most popular search engine in the world, with a staggering 92 percent market share. For context, the second-most used search engine, Bing, has less than 4 percent, according to StatCounter.
But Google isn’t just the top search engine — it’s also the top browser. Around 65 percent of internet users have Google Chrome as their browser of choice. Safari is the second-most popular, but it has less than 20 percent market share. Google is also the top choice for search engine hosts. The only category it doesn’t sweep is social media, where YouTube (owned by Google) ranks fourth. The most popular social media site is Facebook.
We Love to Shop Online
E-commerce websites such as Amazon and eBay are ubiquitous. Every brick-and-mortar shop offers exclusive deals or products online, particularly around Black Friday. After the pandemic forced people to stay inside, the online marketplace hit a major boom. It’s still surprising, however, to learn just how often we shop online. DataReportal found that about six in every 10 people ages 16 to 64 admit to buying something online every week.
That may sound ludicrous, but consider what constitutes a purchase. It’s not just splurging on clothing or electronics; it’s renting a movie, ordering food, or paying a bill. In-app purchases for mobile games also fall under this umbrella. It may be why consumers are more likely to buy things on their smart devices than on their computers. Maybe it should be surprising that it’s only weekly and not daily!
The Most Popular Domains
Every website needs a unique URL that distinguishes it from millions of other web pages online, but there’s one part that’s commonly shared: the domain name. That’s the short two- to four-letter code at the end of a URL. The most recognizable of these is .com. Part of the reason it’s so iconic? Because it’s also the most popular.
Verisign reports that almost half of all domains (43.8 percent) use .com or .net. Other domains see frequent use as well. Most people have visited a site using .org, .co, or something niche like .art or .me, but .com remains the most prominent domain online — a title it’s unlikely to lose any time soon.
Over 10,000 Tweets Are Sent Per Second
It seems downright impossible to track just how much information people exchange online every day, given that each second sees billions of emails, posts, and videos being uploaded or shared. Internet Live Stats keeps track of some of the most popular social media sites. According to its running calculations, approximately 10,000 tweets are published every second. In the same amount of time, there are over 100,000 Google searches and over 3 million emails sent (but most are spam). Surprisingly, the site with the least amount of action per second is Instagram, with about 1,200 photos posted per second.
Hackers Attack a Website Every Second
Internet Live Stats doesn’t track only social media posts. Users can see how many computers are sold per day and the amount of electricity used, and toggle between per day and year-to-date views. The most worrying, though, is the page for the number of websites hacked per day. It’s difficult to get an exact statistic since the number changes so quickly, but the upward tick reveals a startling trend: a website is hacked almost every second.
That may not sound so bad at first glance, given the sheer number of websites. (Internet Live Stats reports over a billion active sites, with more added consistently.) As of this writing, though, over 73 million websites have been hacked in 2022. It’s a stark reminder that, as much as we rely on the internet, it’s far from secure. Internet safety has become an essential life skill, alongside cooking and doing taxes.
Smartphones Are the Big Winners
It wasn’t that long ago when the internet could be accessed only from computers. Cell phones, if you were lucky enough to have one, were for making calls and using the calculator. That changed with the debut of the iPhone in 2007, widely considered the first mainstream smartphone. Since then, the devices have evolved and now dominate not just phone sales, but also the internet.
StatCounter has found that the majority of internet browsing is done via mobile devices, at nearly 60 percent. No wonder phone addiction has become such a common phrase in recent years! Less than 40 percent of browsing is done on desktops and laptops, and tablets, which were once considered revolutionary, now hold only a 2.1 percent share of internet use.