America Leads Countries in Internet Usage

Released on: Thursday, August 9, 2007 8:00 AM

    America Leads Countries in Internet Usage

Although America leads other countries in its Internet usage, other countries besides the US account for 80% of Internet users. Currently, there are 750 million web users across the globe and the Internet population continues to grow every year. Just last year, the Internet audience grew by 10%. Among the countries with the greatest increase in Internet usage are: Russia, India, and the country with the largest populace, China. China in fact now boasts the second largest Internet population, behind the US. It has 87 million users while the United States has 153.4 million.

The Internet's background is rather modest. It started small and in fact was initially intended as a network to be used only by the military and by scientists. However, the Internet's true potential was soon realized so that now, millions of people rely on the Internet for everything from shopping to reading news, booking tickets for travel, and even work.

Even though the Internet's original inventors did not see its potential to be the vast and widespread network it is today, it was and has always been an all-encompassing "library" of sorts, with its endless array of information on just about anything you might want to know about. Anyone who can access the network has access to this knowledge, very easily. Because of this, the Internet itself had to have a search tool similar to the library system's Dewey decimal system in order to make information easy to find. The tool that made this possible was the search engine. Although AltaVista was one of the first on the scene, this landscape has recently been taken over by the giant Google, as well as MSN and Yahoo! As more and more people use the Internet, so, too, do more and more people contribute information to the Internet, thus making search engines indispensable for quick and easy information access. In fact, recent research suggests that although email is the number one activity users participate in online, making use of search engines comes in second.

With the popular activities of sending and receiving email as well as doing information searches, it's no wonder that many people spend a lot of time online. Number one in this category is the Canadians. Although they come in ninth as a country with the number of global Internet users online, they come in first with the amount of time they spend online per person, an average of 39.6 hours per month. Israel comes in second, with 37.4 hours per month, on average. Third, fourth and fifth, in order, are South Korea, the United States, and the United Kingdom. These countries have an advantage over others, in that they have the greatest access to broadband service.

Although the Internet has brought great benefits, unfortunately, risks have also become a global threat. Most Internet users face ongoing issues with global spam and scams. However, health risks are also on the rise because Internet activity does not encourage physical activity, and users can become very sedentary. Children especially, including teens, spend time online that could be dedicated to physical activity and team play, as well as other types of exercise. Not only does this burn calories and improve health in other ways, but this type of activity builds interpersonal skills that are lacking in the solitary world of the Internet user.

    

---

    Print this page   E-mail this page