76.478: The Anthropology of Cyberspace
Unit 3: History and Expansion of the Internet

Basic Trends


Sources:
Gregory R. Gromov. History of Internet and WWW: The Roads and Crossroads of Internet  History. 1995-1998   Internet Valley, Inc http://www.internetvalley.com/intval.html
Robert H. Zakon. Hobbes' Internet Timeline v5.0  (c)1993-2000 http://info.isoc.org/guest/zakon/Internet/History/HIT.html
Inktomi WebMap. http://www.inktomi.com/webmap/
Howard Rheingold. Chapter Three: Visionaries and Convergences: The Accidental History of the Net http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/3.html

Issue: Internet and productivity growth (follow up on Castel's observations. From 1995-1999 productivity growth in the US was 2.7%/annum. Source: Alan Blinder, The Internet and the New Economy

International Patterns

In general, the major industrialized countries provide  90% of the Internet services their populations comprise 90% of the users. The United States is the dominant Internet power. It accounts for approximately 50% of total Internet users and almost 75% of the Internet services. Some estimates suggest that half of the US households have Internet access and the Web will soon constitute a mass medium, as common as TV sets or telephones. As similar percentage of Canadians (40%) are on line, but have less access to locally based information resources and may not use the system as extensively as their American cousins (See: Nine percent of Wired Canadians Shop Online).
Japan, the UK, Germany, Canada, Australia, and France follow the US. This order has not basically changed in the last 5 years except that Japan has moved up substantially (from 6th to 2nd place). Because of the dominance of the US, UK, Canada, and Australia, close to 90% of the material on-line is in English. Relative to population, Canada has 1/3 the server capacity of the US.
 
 

Distribution of Internet Hosts (in percent)

Source: Internet Software Consortium: Internet Domain Survey

Europe is the most important region on the Internet after North America. Users rates are estimate at 20% in general, although some countries, Sweden and Finland, have a use rate comparable to the US. Iceland has the highest number of users/capita in the world.  (See: Forester Resarch 1999: One In Three Europeans Will Embrace A Digital Lifestyle By 2003; UNDP 1999:63)

The developing world lags well behind the West in Internet connectivity and use. With approximately 80% of the world's popullation, in includes less than 10% of the users and services. There are differences between regions as well. Latin America has the highest participation rate, followed by Asia and, lastly, Africa. Disparities within these regions are evident as well. Japan has over 3 million hosts, whereas China has 63,000 and India, 18,000. In sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa has 140,000 Internet hosts, and 50% of the Internet Users. the next placed country in the region, neighbouring Namibia, has 2,000. Zimbabwe and Botswana, also neighbors, have 1,400 and 1,000 respectively. Kenya has 500, and Nigeria, the most populus African country has less than 100. (See Africa Internet Connectivity)


Source: NUA Internet Surveys for January 2000

Follow up: UNDP, Human Development Report 1999 , Globalization with a Human Face

The Digital Divide

These survey results from The Standard show interesting patterns in US Web usage.
  • almost half (according to some surveys as many as half) the adult population use the Web to some degree
  • men and women use the Web with almost equal frequency (a change from 5 years ago when men outnumbered women 2:1)
  • Web use declines with age, with a sharp drop off after 55 (Uh-oh).
  • There is a very strong correlation between Net use and income. The median income of Web users was 50% higher than that of the general population. Households that earned over $100,000/annum were twice as likely to use the Web those earning less than $50,000/annum.
  • There is also a strong correlation with education with a marked difference between college and high school graduates on the one hand and high school grads and people who did not finish high school on the other.
  • There is a strong correlation with "race" as well. Asian Ameicans use the Internet the most; Whites are second; African American have the lowest participation. This correlation seems to hold, although more weakly, when the distributions are controlled for income. 
  • While most of the gaps indicated have narrowed over the past 5 years, the income gap is increasing.
Source:  David Lake. Spotlight: How Big Is the U.S. Net Population? The Standard, November 29, 1999
http://www.thestandard.net/metrics/display/0,2149,1071,00.html

Followup: NTIA. 1999 Falling Through the Net:  Defining the Digital Divide.
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/fttn99/contents.html
Other sources: The Digital Divide Network

Jumping the Queue

While the fundamental dymanics of Internet expansion favours the intensification of wealth and power difference on international and national scales, alternative processes are also in motion. Well establish economies may sometimes discourage innovation because of the intertia of already established infrastructures and institutions and legal and political structures that support their continuity. Early and preemptive adoption of new technologies, such as the Internet, can assist marginalized groups and regions to improve their traditional positions in the global economy by beating out the competiton.

For example Singapore has achieved notable prominence among the emerging Asian nations on the basis of developing an information and communications infrastructure. Asia in general is making greater headway than Europe. ( Asia-Pacific passes Europe in info revolution by Jack McCarthy CNN ) In Canada, PEI is attempt to turn around a primary resource and tourism economy to knowledge based on through major committments to telecommunications and computer infrastructure. (Islanders' IT access is no small spud)

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Page created by:
Brian Schwimmer
January 2000