It’s hard to believe the internet is more than 30 years old. I don’t mean to suggest that’s old-old — quite the opposite given how many people now exclusively rely on it for looking up directions, ordering lunch and trolling Justin Trudeau no matter what he says or does. My teeth are older than the internet. Thirty years ago, only 1% of the global population was online. This year that number climbed to 64.4%, or 5.
1 billion people (to be fair, two billion of them are my mother, busy on various right-wing nutbar conspiracy websites). How we use the internet has dramatically changed over those 30 years. For example, 92% of all internet users now access it through a mobile phone, not a computer. That means roughly 4.32 billion people are currently ignoring other people to check sports scores and softcore TikTok videos instead of a) working; b) answering direct questions from a teacher/wife/uniformed police officer; and c) keeping an eye on the roa