What happens in an Internet Minute?

It’s hard to fathom precisely what happens in an internet minute, especially in today’s society. Everywhere you go people are on their phones during every minute of the day and night, but what exactly are they doing? 

Chadd Callahan and Lori Lewis first began collating data on what happens in an internet minute in 2017 and have been releasing their findings through a handy infographic every year since. Each year we see the figures moving up and down, and platforms being added and removed, proving that our online world is ever-changing.

We saw steady increases in key platforms such as Facebook and Google that have continued to grow every year. An impressive 1 million people are logging into Facebook each minute and Google continued to dominate the internet search engine sector with an impressive 3.8 million search queries taking place every minute! 

Another key finding was the continued increase in At Home Browsing and Entertainment with a significant increase in online shopping and hours of Netflix being watched. Online shopping continued to prove to be a threat to brick and mortar stores with a massive $996,956 spent every minute, which was up by $134,133 from 2018, as people continued to shop from the comfort of their homes. Online streaming services like Netflix saw significant growth with 694,444 hours watched compared to 266,000 last year. That’s more than double the amount of people choosing to Netflix and Chill in 2019 than the year before…

The most evident decline from 2018 was Snapchat, with a total of 2.1 million snaps sent every minute in 2019 compared to 2.4 million in 2018. The platform is continuing to fight for its place amongst the larger platforms such as Facebook and Instagram and 2019 saw the introduction of other platforms like TikTok – which we suspect will have a large role in the 2020 infographic!

2019 also saw the rise of smart speakers like Alexa and Google Home. There were 180 speakers shipped every minute, showing our progression into a whole new level of internet technological advances. 

Giphy and Music Streaming Subscriptions also secured a spot on the infographic for the first time since its inception. A total of 4.8 million GIFs were sent every minute and Music Streaming Services like Spotify saw 41 subscriptions being signed for every minute, a number that we believe will only increase in 2020. 

Instagram continued to prove that it is a platform to watch out for. 347,222 people scrolled the app every minute in 2019 compared to 174,000 last year, which is almost double the number of people!

So there you have it. 60 seconds passes us usually without much thought, but on the internet there are thousands of things happening and decisions being made every single second.

Have a think: what changes do you expect to see in an internet minute in 2020?