There is no denying that the internet has changed the world we live in. Some would argue that this change is for the better while others would argue the change is for worse. Ultimately, it comes down to how an individual uses the internet and to what extent. From our shorter attention spans to our increased connectivity these are 25 ways the internet has changed the world for better or for worse.
25
We don't have downtime anymore. In the bathroom, on the metro, we're connected everywhere
24
We diagnose ourselves. Although this has increased our health awareness, it seems to have also increased the prevalence of hypochondria
23
Phone books, floppy disks, cd's...who uses these things anymore?
22
Even the watch industry has had to adjust
21
China has camps for internet addicts
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20
That's actually not too crazy. A lot of researchers are considering adding internet addiction to the list of mental disorders
19
There is actually high speed internet access all the way up Mount Everest
18
These days webcams are pretty ubiquitous. The first one was actually created to monitor a coffee pot at the University of Cambridge
17
We multitask more. The downside of all those open tabs? Our productivity and efficiency actually decrease
16
And don't forget our attention spans. 50% of internet users quit waiting for a video to load after 10 seconds.
15
Waiting for videos to load isn't our only issue though. The average shot length in an English language film has decreased from 12 seconds in 1930 to only about 2 seconds in 2015.
14
The postal service is something that our grandparents used. Today we send emails. Actually, we send about 204 million of them every minute.
13
Most of China's internet users are on mobile phones, not PCs
12
In 1993 there were only 623 websites on the internet
11
Today, more than 100,000 domain names are registered every single day
10
Remember internet addiction? Apparently 6% of the world's population has it
9
Before the internet, lol meant "lots of love"
8
Privacy is dying. We probably don't need to do much explaining here.
7
Remember encyclopedias? The ones that came in big sets and had one volume per letter? Well, Wikipedia took care of that.
6
Speaking of Wikipedia, public opinion has drastically shifted. 10 years ago it was the website that your teachers warned you about ("It's not reliable!"). These days people understand the dangers but they usually just check the sources.
5
Only 5% of world's 7,700 languages have made it to the internet. Some people believe that this might lead to significantly more linguistic extinction
4
We already mentioned phone books, but these days we don't even memorize telephone numbers
3
Music stores, banks, photo stores, retailers, etc. have all either moved online or gone out of business
2
In 2010 Finland became the first country to declare internet access as a legal right
1
In spite of this, only 37.9% of people in the world have access to internet at least once per year (the number of people with regular internet access is significantly lower)
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