Earlier this week I happened upon Megan Garber’s piece for the Atlantic offering a high level summary of the first ever Web Index provided by the World Wide Web Foundation. The foundation was founded by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who “invented the World Wide Web in 1989 while working as a software engineer at CERN.” The Index itself draws on an incredible wealth of data covering 61 countries worldwide and utilizing 85 underlying indicators across seven components and three sub-indexes. The report and key findings document (51 pages) is available for review, and is a tremendous resource for those interested in additional data.
The countries with the highest overall scores are (in order, beginning with the top rated nation) Sweden, United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Finland, Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia, Norway, and Iceland.
The countries with the highest ratings for web usage web usage are (in order, beginning with the top rated nation) Iceland, Switzerland, Finland, United States, Canada, Germany, Norway, United Kingdom, Sweden, and Singapore.
So What?
The web’s global impact continues to grow. As is true of other modern advancements, all global citizens do not benefit equally.
- How has the web changed how you interact with and understand the world?
- How is your church different today as a direct result of the web?
- What issues regarding the web do you believe will be most important during the next generation? How does your faith influence your thinking about these matters?