Sweden No. 1 in Internet Usage, Beating U.S. for Top Spot

Sweden is tops when it comes to using the Internet to enrich the lives of its citizens.

The country dominated the first Web Index designed by Tim Berners-Lee’s World Wide Web Foundation. The U.S. and the U.K. finished second and third respectively, with Canada taking the No. 4 spot. Yemen, Zimbabwe and Burkina Faso are the lowest ranked countries. Globally, less than one in three people use the Internet. This number dips to less than one in six in Africa.

The U.S., the report states, ranked lower for social, economic and political impacts, than did Sweden.

It also ranked lower in communications infrastructure, likely because it “has a lower percentage of households with personal computers than a raft of countries, including Canada, Ireland, Japan and Norway,” the report states. “It also offers slower bandwidth per Internet user than a range of countries, most notably Iceland, Sweden and Singapore.”

The U.S. did, however, rank No. 1 for institutional infrastructure, for an overall readiness ranking of fourth. It is also tops globally for Web content and Web use, receiving high marks for “the quality and usefulness of government websites to provide online information and services for its citizens,” the report reads.

Canada took first place globally for social impact of the Web, but the economic and political impacts were “markedly lower” than the U.S. Canada may have placed third – beating out Sweden – for Web use and content, but suffers from slow Internet speed and low mobile phone subscriptions per capita, the report adds.

The survey, the report says, was created to give a wide-ranging look at the condition of the Web above the usual data such as the number of Internet users and broadband connections. The document amasses five years of information to gauge the political, economic and social impact of the Web in 61 developed and developing countries. It also examines Internet use, available Web content and the infrastructure within the country.

A PDF of the report can be downloaded at: http://thewebindex.org.

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Sweden No. 1 in Internet Usage, Beating U.S. for Top Spot

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