From “Using” to “Not Using”

Roberto Saracco August 10, 2016 Blog 127 Views

The International Telecommunication Union has published the ICT Facts and Figures 2016, an interesting snapshot on where we stand, as a World, in relation to telecommunications infrastructures and use.
As you can expect we have moved forward toward more penetration of mobile, better access to internet and so on.
What surprised me was a map of the world showing where people are NOT using internet. Till last year the map presented the number of people USING internet, this year the point of view is the reverse. It is not a little "conceptual" step.  
It means that we are now taking for granted that internet has to be a sort of Universal Service hence we should look at who is not able to access it.
This represent a cultural change, I would say. Something we might use in the future as the tipping point.
I also found interesting to see that the gender gap (number of males using the Internet vs number of females) has grown 1 percentage point, from 11 to 12%. This is the consequence of a growing gender gap in many areas of the world. Only in the developed world (Western Countries, Japan and South Korea) the gender gap is sharply decreasing (from 5.8 in 2013 down to 2.8 in 2016), in all other areas it is increasing, probably as result of the growing usage of internet in those areas that sees men as earlier adopters.

About Roberto Saracco

Roberto Saracco fell in love with technology and its implications long time ago. His background is in math and computer science. Until April 2017 he led the EIT Digital Italian Node and then was head of the Industrial Doctoral School of EIT Digital up to September 2018. Previously, up to December 2011 he was the Director of the Telecom Italia Future Centre in Venice, looking at the interplay of technology evolution, economics and society. At the turn of the century he led a World Bank-Infodev project to stimulate entrepreneurship in Latin America. He is a senior member of IEEE where he leads the New Initiative Committee and co-chairs the Digital Reality Initiative. He is a member of the IEEE in 2050 Ad Hoc Committee. He teaches a Master course on Technology Forecasting and Market impact at the University of Trento. He has published over 100 papers in journals and magazines and 14 books.

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