The internet is huge. Most people don’t appreciate just how vast it is. In a single day, thousands upon thousands of users will head online for one reason or another. Work, play and information-gathering are all pursuits that can require the internet.

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Even individual websites can be much, much bigger than we might appreciate. To help you grasp just how big the internet is, here are some stats that apply, on average, to any 24-hour period of the internet’s existence.

General

The total amount of data traffic taking place on the internet in a day amounts to something over 2.3 billion gigabytes. If your computer has a fairly spacious one terabyte (thousand gigabyte) hard drive, you would need nearly 27 of those to contain the amount of data transmitted in a single second. One of the main ways of navigating the internet is Google, which is used for nearly 4.2 billion searches in a day.

There are an awful lot of websites online trying to attract a share of this traffic. When the internet is so vast, it is no wonder that so many businesses turn to professional web designers for help in standing out. Just about any town, big or small, has web development companies and IT Support agencies, with web designers helping their customers create a site that people see and the IT support agencies such as IT Support Southgate agency PC Docks who equally ensure businesses can stay online. For example, when it browsing the web businesses are now more reliant than ever, so staying on top of any bugs in the system is key to a smooth business day.

Social Media

Social media is particularly massive. The major sites have millions or even billions of users, and many of these are active a number of times over the course of a day.

On an average day, more than 772.76 million tweets will be sent – a truly staggering number. Tumblr, meanwhile, sees only a fraction of the activity that its chirpy cousin receives. Nonetheless, over the course of a single day Tumblr will see a total of 160.6 million posts from its users – definitely a number worth talking about.

Communication

Social media is itself a form of communication, but many of the more direct and personal communications still take place over more dedicated channels. From simple email (almost as old as the internet itself) to the millions of users who can now make high-quality video calls, people all over the world are talking online. This side of the internet underpins most businesses and also plays a vital role in many people’s personal relationships.

Every day, Skype will be used to make over 148 million calls. These range from long-distance business meetings to grandparents saying hello to new grandchildren on the other side of the world (and probably a few other types of call best left unmentioned). However, email remains the king of online communications when it comes to sheer bulk. An incredible number of emails are sent every day. The total number stands at just over 206 billion. Note that on this scale, “just” means that it actually exceeds that figure by something in the region of 115 million.