#15 Internet couples
One out of every eight married couples in 2011 met on the internet. After all, why bother working your way through the dating pool when you can filter out potential significant others a la Google Advanced Search?
#14 Facebook hackers
Facebook will pay you at least $500 if you can find out a way to hack the site. In fact, they frequently pay much more- the reason being that they want to find all of the possible weaknesses in their system so they can be patched up.
#13 Amazon
Amazon now sells more e-books than print books. Alas, more bad news for all you old-fashioned types out there, with book stores closing left and right. Oh well. Buy a Kindle!
#12 Google searches
Google handles about 1 billion search queries per day, releasing some 200 tons of carbon dioxide in the process. Bet you didn’t think your desire to learn more about the Harlem Shake phenomenon would leave a carbon footprint, did you?
#11 17 billion
By the end of 2012, it is estimated that there were 17 billion devices connected to the internet. That’s around 2 and a half times as many devices as there are people on Earth!
#10 80% of downloads
Of the 13 million music files available online, 52,000 songs account for 80% of the downloads. We feel like there’s an “Occupy” joke in here somewhere….
#9 Garages
HP, Google, Microsoft, and Apple were all started in garages. The fact that they are all now (obviously) household names just proves the old adage that big things can come in small packages.
#8 Video games vs DVDs
Since 2008, video games have outsold DVD movies. Is gaming really becoming that ingrained in our society? Is a combination of pirating and Netflix making DVDs obsolete? Our bet is that it’s both.
#7 Spam
“Spam” accounts for 60 percent of all emails sent. In fact, according to Google, one-third of all Gmail servers are filled with spam. This includes ads for shady companies, discounts on pills that don’t really work, letters from Arab sheikhs, etc.
#6 eBay transactions
On eBay, there are an average of $680 worth of transactions taking place each second. Fun fact: A woman once tried to sell her soul on eBay for $2000. Yeah.
#5 Laptops vs notebooks
70% of college students use computers rather than notebooks to take notes during lectures. After all, it’s faster and it comes equipped with the internet, so you can just watch viral videos when things get too boring.
#4 Internet traffic
Internet traffic is growing at the rate of fifty or sixty percent a year, according to a study by the University of Minnesota. You know what more people online means, right? Yep, more people posting pictures of their cats. Sigh.
#3 Typists
On an average work day, a typist’s fingers travel 12.6 miles. Despite this startling number, we have to imagine that they do NOT count this towards their cardiovascular exercise for the day.
#2 Blinking
The average computer user blinks 7 times per minute; the average rate of blinks per minute is 20. You’ve often heard that computer screens hurt our eyes- well, this is part of the reason.
#1 Google’s electricity usage
Google uses an estimated 15 billion kWh of electricity per year, more than most countries. However, they offset this by generating their own energy through solar panels!
[Via:]
Hard to Compute: Tech Facts
