UN published data from a new study, which claims that 37% of the world’s population has never used the Internet. That’s roughly 2.9 billion people. Most of them live in developing countries, only 4% in developed ones.
Over the past two years, 800 million more people have started using the Internet – thanks to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic for this. Many have had to switch to remote work or online studies. However, some people still use shared gadgets and do not have constant access to the network.
The difference in internet prevalence depends on living conditions and gender. Only 39% of rural residents have access to the Internet, while 62% of men and 57% of women use the Internet globally. The difference is especially big in Arab countries: 68% of men and 56% of women go online there.
The most interesting thing is that not even all young people use the Internet. Between the ages of 15-24, 29% of people are offline.
It is likely that more and more people will start using the Internet in the future, but for 2021 the figure of 2.9 billion people who do not sit on smartphones, do not read news on the Internet and do not watch videos of cats and dogs seems a little strange.
