Almost Half the World Will be Online by End of 2016 (indiatimes.com)

By the end of this year, almost half of the world's population will be using the internet, partly because of growth of mobile networks and internet access becoming affordable to many, a United Nations agency said. From a report:In the world's developed countries about 80 percent of the population use the internet. But only about 40 percent in developing countries and less than 15 percent in less-developed countries are online, according to a report by the U.N.'s International Telecommunications Union (ITU). In several of Africa's poorer and more fragile countries, only one person in 10 is on the internet. The offline population is female, elderly, less educated, poorer and lives in rural areas, said the union, a specialized agency for information and communication technologies. Globally, 47 percent of the world's population is online, still far short of a U.N. target of 60 percent by 2020. Some 3.9 billion people, more than half the world's population, are not. ITU expects 3.5 billion people to have access by the end of this year

Comments

Re:Just what we need

[Sooner Boomer]

Half the world online, and 96% of them are Nigerian Princes with millions they need to get out of the country...

Eternal 2017

[paiute]

Billions of IoT toys waiting to be botted. Millions of poor people who have all day to sit around devising online scams. Hysterical fake news flashes clicking like a Geiger counter in an activated pile. Signal to noise ratio approaches zero.

And The Other Half

[deKernel]

And the other half will be too happy to care that they aren't online.

Re:And The Other Half

[Anne Thwacks]

The other half probably tried it, and decided it was not good for their privacy.

what does 'online' really mean, anyways?

[adosch]

Does online mean they have to have a device and some sort of access to the internet as 'they' know it? If that's the case, it's probably just the classic case of watering down statistics to manipulate this into this some sort of seemingly still existent 'technical divide' problem in this world.

In regards to the African statistic that was tossed out, 1 in 10 people is on the internet. Throwing out the fact that if 'online' means having/owning your own device and access service, I'd like to think that chances are, they are on occasionally already or are already exposes by the 9 others around them.

Re:what does 'online' really mean, anyways?

[unixisc]

That is what I wondered. As it is, most Chinese and Indians have cellphones already, and are capable of being on the internet if they want to. Whether they are or not is another thing altogether

But the other thing - will they be on things like Facebook/Twitter, or will it be more like using WhatsApp to talk to people around them?

Re:what does 'online' really mean, anyways?

[Kjella]

it's probably just the classic case of watering down statistics to manipulate this into this some sort of seemingly still existent 'technical divide' problem in this world.

Africa still has countries like Niger with 20% literacy and you think the 'technical divide' is just a hoax, says most about you. China is approaching first world levels with 96.4%, India is still way behind at 72.1% but they are pulling themselves out of the mud. Africa is still a big cluster fuck. Sure one in ten means most people will know someone who they can ask for help, but since most access in the third world is mobile I doubt anyone will part with their cell phone for long except to close family even if they could use it. And it's probably on limited and relatively expensive plans so you don't get to use it frivolously.

Of course, being literate doesn't mean much unless you can put it to good use. I mean it's nice to be able to read textbooks, letters, package labels and instruction manuals but most truly poor people live on rural subsistence farms with little of that. Having Internet access is a great way to make being literate even more useful, you can learn more and find out things for yourself. It makes giving your kids an education more valuable. At the same time I don't think you should underestimate the challenge of going from the pre-industrial era to 21st century knowledge workers, the jobs are unskilled manual labor.

Would that it was only a third.

[Geste]

TSLSIA

Maybe not.

[ctrl-alt-canc]

There are some problems to solve before. Frankly speaking, while people are busy connecting developing countries to internet, I meet more and more people who are dissatisfied of internet, and have plans to spend less and less for internet access. Maybe it is better to focus on the quality of what it is delivered, rather than how to deliver it.

Home Internet only?

[tepples]

I've had discussions here and elsewhere on whether home Internet access is a necessity or a luxury. I claim that Internet access is a necessity to find and keep a job because so many employers offer email or a web form as their preferred if not only means of application. But others claim that visiting a public library during its normal hours of operation ought to be enough for anyone, even if the nearest library branch is open only 9 AM to 6 PM on some days or not at all on weekends (source: acpl.info), or even if public transportation between your home or work and the nearest library branch is inconvenient or nonexistent.