Internet Use: You Might Be Surprised By These Lesser Known Facts

When you think of the people that use the internet, what do you think? I usually think of the average user as being aged 20-30, male, young, and pretty cool. I don’t know why, because I’m none of those things…except maybe the cool part? (please?). Anyway, here, we’ve collected together a few facts that might surprise you about the internet. it turns out that things aren’t quite as they might appear to be at first glance.

1.Not all university students use their phones or tablets to access the internet on a day-to-day basis: now, this might be a prejudice of an older person here, buy I thought that all students, with maybe the exception of one or two extreme outliers, would use their phone/tablet every day. These are the millennials. I thought they couldn’t go an hour without internet access, let alone an entire day. But, according to Domo, 3% of uni students don’t use their phones/tablets every day. This was a poll of 2000 students, so that means 60 students! That’s a lot more than the one or two hipsters I had in mind.

2.Budding writers can make it online; they just have to do what they know they can do. There are so many people that want to write, and then there are so many other people telling them not to do it. It’s complete nonsense. If you know you can write, if you know you have something that people will want to read, then do it. Don’t let the naysayers pull you down. They’ve been doing that since time immemorial. The trick is to find your heroes, imitate them for a while, and then create your own voice. If you’re interested, check out Brendan Kelly’s Twitter account, Nihilists Arby’s, he’s racked up a huge following in the past few months.

You'll see how being unique can set you apart from the rest. Just believe in yourself and try. If you fail, so what? At least you tried. Writing is one of those professions where everyone will have an opinion. Some will tell you you're great, others will tell you you're rubbish. Sometimes they tell you you're rubbish because they’re jealous. Other times it’s because they think they’re so great that all they can do is critique others work. Sometimes it is because you're rubbish. You have to get used to rejection because it happens all the time! Just think about this, JK Rowling was rejected 12 times before someone went with the Harry Potter books. How dumb were those 12 publishing houses, eh?

3.If you haven’t heard of Periscope, you soon will do. This is a new social media ap, owned by Twitter. For me, someone who grew up without the internet, it’s a bit scary. Well, for someone that comes from humble beginnings at a digital agency in London, it appears this way. It’s a little bit Big Brother, and English Literature 101 taught me to be scared of that. Anyway, Periscope is a live-streaming ap. You can travel (albeit virtually) anywhere in the world where a live stream is running and just watch: people's houses, statues, monuments, inside offices, the edge of the world, etc. I suppose it could be boring at times, but at other times, fun as you like. Anyway, it must be less boring that watching paint dry, because it has increase in popularity exponentially. Since its launch, it’s had more than 10million users. Not bad.