What Happens in an Internet Minute on the Web?

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Written by: Alex Popa

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What Happens in an Internet Minute on the Web?

If you’re unfamiliar with the term, an internet minute refers to what happens online in the span of 60 seconds. You can apply this to anything like tweets shared on Twitter, videos posted on YouTube, etc.

Below, I’ll list out some of the more interesting data I found about people’s activities during an internet minute. This data is accurate as of 2022, so it’s fairly new.

Take a look at the chart below (some part of it is based on research from Statista and some from Data Never Sleeps – 2021 info).

ActivityAmounts Per Minute
Emails sent231 million
Videos viewed on TikTok167 million
Cryptocurrency purchased (USD)$90.2 million
Texts sent16 million
Messages sent on Facebook9 million
Products bought online6 million
Searches conducted on Google5.9 million
Snaps shared on Snapchat2.43 million
Content shared on Facebook1.7 million
Swipes on Tinder1.1 million
Hours streamed1 million
Amazon revenue earned$955,517
Apple revenue earned$848,090
Messages sent on Discord668,000
Tweets sent on Twitter575,000
Comments posted on Facebook510,000
Content viewed on Netflix452,000
USD spent on Amazon$443,000
USD sent on Venmo$437,600
Alphabet (Google) revenue earned$433,014
Tweets shared on Twitter347,200
Microsoft revenue earned$327,823
USD spent on Amazon$283,320
Facebook revenue earned$213,628
Hours spent in Zoom meetings104,600
Tesla revenue earned$81,766
USD spent on DoorDash$76,400
Photos shared on Instagram66,000
USD spent on online events$66,000
Netflix revenue earned$50,566
Users active on LinkedIn20,800
Hours of video uploaded to YouTube500

What we get from this, aside from the fact that Amazon is literally filthy rich and people send a lot of emails, is that the internet is always awake.

Something always happens somewhere, all the time, and there’s no stopping it. Save for a nuclear attack that wipes off all the servers everywhere, and there’s no more electricity; nothing can stop the internet ever again.

The internet has become ever so present in our lives, and it’s safe to say that the lack of it would literally cripple entire industries. The world would cease to function in many ways without this interconnected network.

Suffice it to say that millions of things are taking place every minute on the internet, and it’s only getting more intense as time passes by.

According to Data Report, approximately 64.6% of the world’s population had access to the internet in January 2013. That’s about 5.158 billion people. Moreover, in the last year, almost 100 million people gained access to the internet.

While it’s unrealistic to expect all of the world’s population to have access to the internet, those figures are slowly rising.

If we’re still at it, I’ll also include a chart with the number of internet users from 1990 to 2023, courtesy of Data Reportal.

Number of Internet Users Worldwide Per Year 1990-2023

The amount of actions performed online per internet minute is directly proportional to the number of internet users at any given period. The more users, the more recorded actions per internet minute.

Below, I’ve prepared a chart showing the number of internet users worldwide over the years.

YearNumber of Internet UsersRevolutionary Discovery
19902.6 million usersTim Berners-Lee developed HTML (HyperText Markup Language)
19914.2 million users (the first website appeared on 6 August 1991)CERN launched the World Wide Web publicly
19926.8 million usersThe first video and audio content are sent online
19939.8 million usersThere are over 600 websites on the internet, and the Mosaic browser has been launched
199420.1 million usersMicrosoft launched a web browser for Windows 95, and Yahoo! is created
199538.7 million usersAmazon, Craigslist, and eBay go online, and Prodigy, America Online, and Compuserve offer internet access. Also, Match.com, the first online dating site, goes live
199672 million usersMicrosoft and Netscape enter the so-called “browser war,” and CNET buys tv.com. “The Dancing Baby” becomes the first viral video on the internet
1997116 million usersNetflix is founded, Netscape announces that its browser is free
1998180 million usersGoogle (the search engine) goes live, and IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) is born
1999272 million usersPeer-to-peer file sharing (piracy) is born, and AOL buys Netscape
2000396 million usersYahoo! and eBay suffer from DDoS attacks as the dot-com bubble bursts, and AOL merges with Time Warner
2001499 million usersNapster is shut down by a federal judge
2002668 million users
2003761 million usersSkype, MySpace, and Safari go live, and the SQL Slammer worm spreads to the entire world in 10 minutes. WordPress is launched
2004899 million usersFacebook and Mozilla Firefox appear
20051.004 billion usersYouTube and Reddit are launched
20061.116 billion usersAOL starts offering most of its services for free and relies on ad revenue. The Internet Governance Forum hosts their first meeting. Twitter is also launched, and the first tweet is sent
20071.288 billion users
20081.460 billion users
20091.655 billion users
20101.908 billion usersFacebook reaches 400 million active users, and Instagram and Pinterest go live
20112.130 billion usersFacebook and Twitter get entangled (and play a big role) in the Middle East revolts
20122.355 billion usersBarrack Obama’s administration successfully stopped the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protected Intellectual Property Act to save user-generated content
20132.534 billion usersEdward Snowden reveals that the NSA has a monitoring program that can tap the communications of anyone in the US. Also, 51%+ of American adults claim that they bank online
20142.8 billion users
20153.004 billion usersInstagram reaches 400 million users
20163.423 billion usersGoogle Assistant is revealed to the world
20173.679 billion users
20183.977 billion usersIoT (Internet of Things) devices go through a massive boom
20194.335 billion users5G is launched
20204.627 billion users
20214.962 billion usersOver 4.66 billion people are connected to the internet
20225.060 billion usersLow-Earth orbit satellite internet becomes a reality with SpaceX’s Starlink
20235.158 billion users

By cross-comparing this chart with the appearance of every revolutionary element of the internet, you’ll quickly see massive increases in internet users.

For instance, 1993 marks the first big leap in internet users, from 9.8 million to 20.1, a 105% increase.

This happened largely because Mosaic, the world’s first web browser, was launched in 1993. That same year, the European Organization for Nuclear Research made its website public and free for everyone.

Once the first websites appeared, the train had left the station, and there was no turning back. The internet would keep evolving, and everyone would get in on the fun.

Take a look at the following extrapolations from the chart above as well:

  • The internet reached 100+ million users in 7 years from the moment HTML was created in 1990 (a 4,361% increase)
  • It only took a little over a year (from 1997 to the beginning of 1999) for the internet to have over 200 million users
  • The internet reached 1 billion users in 2005, in only 15 years since Tim-Berners Lee created HTML (a 38,361% increase)
  • The 2-billion mark was reached 6 years later, in 2011, a 113% increase, and the 3-billion mark was reached 4 years later
  • In total, from 1990 to 2023, a 33-year period, the number of internet users grew from 2.6 million to 5.158 billion, a 192,284% increase.

In 2023, we have over 5,158 billion people connected to the internet, and as I said previously, the number is only going up the more time passes.

We also have to take into consideration that the world’s population is in constant growth, with an estimated 8 billion people in November 2020.

Naturally, more and more people will get their hands on advice that has access to the internet.

What’s the End-Game of the Internet?

The internet exists to make our lives easier and connect people from all around the world instantly. The benefits far outweigh the flaws (arguing with people online and wasting time?).

The future looks ever-brighter for the Age of the Internet, with brand-new technologies to make our lives more comfortable.

That’s about all I can say about the optic. Stay tuned for other interesting analyses of online platforms and phenomena!

Sources

  1. Statista – Media Usage in an Internet Minute as of April 2022
  2. Visual Capitalist – From Amazon to Zoom: What Happens in an Internet Minute in 2021?
  3. Data Reportal – Digital Around the World
  4. Live Science – Internet History Timeline: ARPANET to the World Wide Web
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Alex Popa

My name is Alex and I have a knack for social media in all its shapes and forms. I’ve dealt with such things for quite some time and I noticed that many people have issues with social media and technicalities.

Unforeseen errors, bugs, and other problems make their use of social media problematic. These things will be discussed amply in the guides on Whizcase.

I'll present the facts as they are, and offer quick and easy solutions for them.

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