Greetings weary web travelers. We wager you’ve had a long journey through the annals of cat memes, advertisements and sexy content that is the internet, and we’re glad to offer you refuge for the time being.
If you’re ashamed about how long you’ve been browsing today, we assure you we’ve been here longer. It takes a raging internet junkie to meet the challenge of feeding the hoard’s internet addiction, someone who is content scouring the web’s unholy corridors 9-5 for information worth sharing. Someone so deeply in denial about their addiction they’re convinced it can lead to personal growth if nourished properly. We, the people who bring you the fascinating information you stumble across online, are so hopelessly consumed by the web’s instant access to information that our only solace is that we might be revelling in disturbing serial killer stories, Disney scandals, and the size of celebrity butts with other addicts like yourselves.
Some consider the internet an essential utility of modern life like water and electricity. Maybe we’re not quite that dependent yet, but could technological channels one day be the only way humankind accesses information? Why use your brain to retrieve that personal “elementary school science” file you locked away in the 7th grade when you can just pluck it from the ubiquitous internet ether at the same speed, or let’s face it, much faster? As science fiction-esque as that sounds, most of us probably couldn’t think up a poignant explanation of why the sky looks blue faster than we could Google one.
So maybe it’s not such an exaggeration after all. With this list of 2014’s most internet addicted countries, feel free to celebrate the miracle of universal connectivity (or mourn the imminent loss of subjective knowledge and usher in the new age of robosapien) and endless pictures of cute kittens.
The following 10 countries are listed by percentage of the population that has used the internet in the last year, as sourced from the International Telecommunications Union. Rankings compiled by the 2014 Social Progress Index.