As one of the world’s most advanced countries, it’s little surprise that internet usage in Canada is high. But the actual statistics surrounding the country’s usage might still raise an eyebrow. Canada ranks highly on the list of internet usage by percentage of the population, and that doesn’t seem like something that’ll change any time soon. With more and more people getting connected to the web, especially among the older demographics, the country is on its way to becoming even more of an internet juggernaut.
In this article, we’re going to take a closer look at internet usage in Canada, including what Canadians do online and how much time they spend doing it.
Staying In Touch
As with most of the world, Canadians are by and large using the web to stay in touch with people they know, especially on their mobile devices. A staggering 88% of web users in Canada use at least one social media site. Indeed, in terms of market reach, it’s social media that claims the top spot. Second on the list is another communication category: chat and messenger apps are on the phones of some 85% of Canadians. These figures, which come from 2020, are an increase on 2019 figures, which suggests that numbers will continue to rise as time goes by.
Staying Entertained
Canadians aren’t just using the internet to communicate with one another. They’re increasingly using it as their go-to home entertainment option. Some 46% of Canadian internet users have at least one gaming app on their mobile device, while hyper-casual games (such as eight ball pool), battle royale games, and sites like Wildz Casino Canada are also increasingly popular. When they’re not gaming, Canada’s citizens are using their devices to watch videos: some 72% of Canadian smartphone users have apps like Amazon Prime, Netflix, and YouTube on their devices.
Most Popular Websites
Google does exceptionally well in Canada; around 18% of all internet traffic in the country is dedicated to Google’s main website. Second on the list? YouTube, which is also owned by the tech giant, Alphabet. If we look at just web browser usage, then we can see that Canadians are more interested in the educational qualities of the web than the shopping experience that it brings. Wikipedia.org just edges out Amazon in the list of most visited websites in the country, claiming 1.34% of internet traffic. That might seem like a low figure, but it amounts to hundreds of millions of visits each month.
Increasing Amount of Time
Canadians follow a trend that we see in other developed nations in that they’re spending increasing amounts of time online. In 2020, more than one-quarter of internet users in the country spent more than twenty hours online a week, an increase of around 10% from the previous year. This figure excluded time spent streaming videos and gaming, too.
It’s not just the amount of time that Canadians spend online that’s increasing, either. The web is clearly becoming an increasing part of people’s everyday life. More than half of the population check their phones first thing in the morning before they’ve done anything else. And that’s an activity they take with them throughout the day, too, with 40% saying they check their devices at least once every thirty minutes.
The Future
So, what does the future hold? With more and more people getting connected, it’s inevitable that the internet will become an even greater part of modern Canadian life, especially as the percentage of workers that are working remotely rises. This is reflected by the $7.2 billion commitment made by the government to upgrade and improve internet infrastructure across the country.
