INTRODUCTION
The 20th century would be known as a giant stepping stone for technological advancements and human evolution. The invention of telegraphs, phones, the radio, and computers have changed the lives of people. The pace of life became unimaginably comfortable for transmitting information at distant places. In the hindsight, the invention of these technologies was still lacking in terms of efficiency and interconnection. And, then, the Internet came into the picture. The worldwide broadcasting capability of the internet brought enormous speed at which the information being disseminated and relayed. Gone are the days when the internet was considered a luxury for industrialized countries, but it became a necessity. (3)
According to the Supreme Court of India, the internet is a fundamental right as opposed to a privilege (1). In 1996, to democratize the internet in the USA, section 230 was added into the US Constitution that ensures the sovereignty of the content creators on the Internet (2). In the last two decades, slowly and gradually, the internet has been prevailing in remote corners of the world. In this article, the adoption of the internet is depicted among the percentage of the population by each country and region.
TOOL & PROCESS
First of all, the dataset was fetched from United Nation’s report on Internet Usage around the world. The dataset was exhaustive and was collected over the period of 18 years ( 2000 to 2018). The adoption and usage of the internet were surveyed, studied, and synthesized in 2000, 20005, 2010, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018. The dataset, primarily, had three variables: 1) Years, 2) Countries, and 3) Usage per Population (%). After removing the trivial data fields and columns, it was evident that Tableau would serve as the best visualization tool to present such lengthy and extensive data.
The dataset was uploaded in the form of .CSV file format. Tableau Desktop App was used to analyze the data visually. After getting through trials and errors, 5 visualizations and 1 Dashboard were designed. For the presentation purpose, in this article, only a dashboard and two visualizations are going to be presented. After creating the visualizations on Desktop App, the designs are uploaded on Tableau Public via the path described here. In the Desktop App, Go to “Server” > Tableau Public > Save to Tableau Public As. If the user is not simultaneously logged in to Tableau Public then, they will be asked to asked log in to the server. The Tableau App will only allow sharing the Tableau Worksheets to Tableau Public if both accounts are logged by the same owner under the same username.
In the upcoming section, the result section is widely discussed.
RESULTS
Links to Tableau Public Dashboards & Visualizations:
Before plunging into nitty-gritty details, first, a Chroropleth map was chosen to visualize the evolution of the internet worldwide, country by country. The map is interactive and gives users the freedom to filter the data and go forward at their own pace. As it is depicted in the screenshot below, every country is advancing towards the adoption and usage of the internet. The shade of the color denotes the magnitude of the the internet usage per population (in %) of that country.
After analyzing the first phase of visualization, the challenge was to find out if the internet has been growing at an analogous rate around the world. As you can see in the dashboard below, there is a high amount of inequity found between the internet evolution between industrialized nations and non-industrialized ones.
In the section below, the data is represented by Red and Gray bubbles. The gray bubbles convey the “dark world”. To elaborate, gray bubbles represent the countries where only 35% of the population is equipped with some sort of internet. Red bubbles represent the countries where more than 35% of the population can access the internet.
The separate visualizations of the dashboards are indeed interconnected. Upon clicking on the country in the map, the filter will hide every trendline of countries except the one which is clicked upon in Choloropleth map. Below is the demo:
To draw a clearer picture of the disparity, a visualization is presented below that conveys the growth rate of Canada and Tuvalu. Both the latter countries fall under the “35% usage per capita” category that is evident of the inequitable technological infrastructure between developed countries and developing countries.
To dig further into it, the visualization presented below shows that let alone these individuals countries, but a big chunk of continental regions are suffering from lacking infrastructure that to be able to provide internet in the rural area. In 2018, among all regions that lacked the infrastructure for robust internet, Central-Asia region topped the bottom 5 with 34.12% usage per capita.
Limitation
First of all there an abysmal level of disproportionateness between developing and developed countries. Although, these visualizations fail to draw a correlation between the poverty in these regions and the lack of infrastructure of the internet. Although it’s well-speculated, this project fails to produce any evidence to back up such a claim. The second limitation is that the servers for Tableau Public are weak in connections. There have been noticeable incidents where Tabley App has repeatedly failed to connect with Tableau Public.
REFLECTION
In this lightening era of information dissemination, the internet has become a basic necessity. Depriving someone of the internet does equate with depriving someone of fundamental human rights. Everyone should have a right to receive and broadcast information to participate in the national and global discourse. Everyone should be able to access the internet so they can start their own business be self-reliant. In 21st century, Internet has become the most important factor for a strong democracy as well as thriving economy.
With that, I thoroughly enjoyed using Tableau because of the freedom I was designing the visualizations with. The process for designing the dashboard was eye-opening for me to realize the wonders Tableau can do. I see myself using Tableau again, especially, while dissecting and decoding the user research data and to understand the complex problems.
REFERENCES
2) https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230
3) https://ourworldindata.org/internet