The Ledger · Entry 25
Most of humanity is now online
Share of the world's population using the internet
Data: Our World in Data, based on the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), via the World Bank
In 2005 fewer than one in six people on Earth had used the internet. It was still mostly a rich-world tool, reached through a desk and a wire. Then cheap smartphones and mobile networks arrived, and access stopped tracking wealth so tightly.
The key rows
By 2024, 71.2% of the world was online, most of them over a phone. The gap that remains is real and follows old fault lines, rural against urban, women against men, poorest against richest. But being connected, once rare, is now the ordinary condition of most of humanity.
Asked often
What share of the world uses the internet?
About 71.2% of the world's population used the internet in 2024, up from 15.6% in 2005.
Who is still offline?
The unconnected are disproportionately rural, poorer, older, and more often women. The gap has narrowed as mobile access spread, but it still follows old lines of wealth and geography.
The world also got better today.
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