More than a third of the world’s population lacks an internet connection

More than a third of the world’s population, or 2.9 billion people, lacks an internet connection, despite the pandemic showing the crucial importance of the network to continue working or studying, according to the UN.

Some 4.9 billion people were connected to the internet this year, according to data collected by the International telecommunication union (ITU) published on Tuesday. They are 800 million more people than before the pandemic.

The fight against Covid-19 it forced the closure of many companies and schools in the world, sometimes for months and forced employees and schoolchildren who could do so, go to the internet to work and study.

But access remains uneven. Almost all of the excluded people (96%) live in developing countries.

And for the hundreds of millions of others who have access to the network, they cannot do it except with devices that they share with others and / or can only have low speed, which drastically limits what they can do on the Internet.

Much remains to be done, “according to ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao.

The exceptionally high increase in the number of users suggests that the pandemic prompted more connections.

Since 2019, 782 million people accessed the internet in this way, or an increase of 17 percent. The rise is 10% for the first year of the pandemic, or the largest annual advance “in a decade,” according to the ITU.

Many people are also faced with problems such as poverty and the lack of electricity or digital knowledge.

The difference in internet access between men and women is decreasing, but men are still in the majority: 62% of men are connected compared to 57% of women.