We break down what a single minute looks like on the internet in 2019.

Ever wondered what the internet looks like?

It's a strange question to ask.

I mean, you can ask what a person looks like.

For instance, this is bad luck brian.

He has greesy hair, pimples, a cringeworthy smile, braces.

You could say he looks pretty awkward.

But bad luck Brian has become a famous meme on the internet because of his awkwardness.

Just look at these beauties.

Don't blame Brian, we all go through an awkward phase.

You can also ask what a country looks like.

For instance, here is Croatia. A beautiful coastline. Crystal clear water, lush green mountains. Historic beautiful architecture.

It's one of the reasons I'm booking tickets there this summer when I'm supposed to be working.

You could also ask what trees looks like, what cars looks like, what books looks like. Anything physical.

But the internet?

It doesn't look like anything.

It's a bunch of code and complicated programs. It's like asking what dreams look like.

But actually, an infographic came out in March that does a pretty good job of revealing just what exactly the internet looks like in 2019. Take a look.

The authors attempt to show everything that takes place on the internet in a single minute.

Humans aren't so fast. We can clip our toenails, make our bed, maybe floss our teeth if we are lucky. Not as impressive.

But on the internet a ton of stuff happens in one minute, and we are going to break down this activity here.

What happens on the internet in one minute?

If we look at that infographic a few figures immediately jump out.

The rise of video

In any given minute, more people are watching YouTube than Googling things. The ratio is 4.5 million to 3.8 million.

It's a testament to dying desktop search as text queries get replaced by voice search and visual search.

Twitch is also on the rise, with 1 million people watching Twitch per minute online.

Messaging Apps

The infographic shows that traditional texting is declining as a medium.

Only 18.1 million texts are sent every minute on the internet compared to 41.6 million messages on Messenger and Whatsapp.

Remember quilt feather pens and writing letters? That's what text messaging will soon be.

eCommerce

Just short of $1 million dollars is spent online every minute on the internet. That is a lot of money, and this number is only set to grow as ecommerce and mcommerce takes off.

Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook

Whereas 347,222 scrolls through Instagram take place each minute, only 87,500 tweets are created each minute.

Twitter needs to step up its game.

Also 2.1 million snaps are created each minute on the internet, whereas only 1 million people log into Facebook each minute. I don't really understand this statistic though, because most people log in once and keep their Facebook open all the time.

Sweet, sweet Tinder

One reason people may be tweeting less is because they are swiping on Tinder. Nobody has time to share their thoughts and feelings about the world in 180-character rants when they have so many matches on Tinder. In fact, 1.4 million swipes take place on Tinder each minute.

Email Marketing is huge

Another statistic that jumped out is the number of emails sent in one minute online, 188 million overall. This eclipses all of the other platforms. It's obvious that email still plays a major role online and that email marketing is far from dead.

How does 2019 compare to 2018?

It's helpful to compare an internet minute in 2019 with last year's internet minute to see how things have changed.

Massive growth

First, Netflix has grown at a blistering pace from 266,000 hours watched per minute in 2018 to 694,444 hours watched per minute in 2019, an increase of 160%.

Instagram also has seen massive growth. Whereas 174,000 scrolls through Instagram took place per minute in 2018, that number has jumped to 347,222 in 2019, nearly doubling.

Another area that saw a big rise is the number of smart speakers and voice activated devices being shipped per minute. Whereas only 67 were shipped per minute in 2018, the number is up to 180 smart speakers in 2019.

Modest Growth

Other platforms have seen modest growth.

For example, the number of Google Search queries per minute on the internet grew only from 3.7 million in 2018 to 3.8 million in 2019.

Facebook logins per minute grew from 973,000 in 2018 to 1 million in 2019.

The number of YouTube videos viewed per minute has increased from 4.3 million to 4.5 million in 2019.

More people are viewing Twitch as well, with views per minute increasing from 936,073 to 1 million.

App downloads per minute have grown from 375,000 to 390,030, growth of 4%.

And more people are buying stuff online. The average amount of money spent online per minute grew from $862,823 to $996,956 in 2019, just short of the $1 million mark.

Plummeting platforms

But its not all good news. There are certain platforms that people are using less.

Snapchat in particular is in trouble. Whereas 2.4 million snaps were created per minute in 2018, the number fell to 2.1 million in 2019.

It's one of the reasons why their stock tanked following an unpopular redesign.

Twitter is facing similar problems, with the number of tweets sent per minute plummeting from 481,000 in 2018 to 87,500 in 2019, a drop of 450%.

If we rank by percentage points, here is how an internet minute changed from 2018 to 2019.

• Smart Speakers purchased per minute grew 169%
• Netflix hours watched per minute grew 161%
• Instagram scrolls per minute doubled
• Tinder swipes per minute rose 27.3%
• Online purchases per minute rose 15.5%
• Twitch views per minute inched up 6.8%
• YouTube videos watched per minute increased 4.7%
• Apps downloaded per minute went up 4%
• Facebook logins per minute grew 2.8%
• Google searches per minute rose 2.7%
• Text messages sent per minute basically stayed flat with growth of 0.6%
• Emails sent per minute also barely changed with growth of 0.5%
• Snaps created per minute fell by 14.3%
• Tweets posted per minute plummetted 480%

So that's more or less what a minute looks like on the internet. More Netflix, more Instagram, more video. Less snaps and tweets. People are spending more (thanks Amazon). Oh and also swiping more on Tinder.

It'll be interesting to see how a minute on the internet changes next year.

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