How BIG is the Internet?

Currently, an estimated 2.2 billion people access the Internet on a regular basis from a computer, smart phone, tablet, television, or other electronic device. That's nearly 1 in every 3 people on earth!

With an estimated 1 trillion web pages, the World Wide Web is massive and ubiquitous, permeating nearly every aspect of daily life in the technologically developed parts of the world. Indeed, it's nearly impossible to think of any aspect of modern life that hasn't been seriously influenced by the rise of the Internet. From business to entertainment, politics to religion, the Internet has made its presence felt in countless ways.

And yet, despite its presence all around us, it's hard to get a sense for just how big a part of our world the Internet has become. One can imagine the servers and computers where digital information is stored, or the cables through which it is transferred, or the satellites and routers through which it is broadcast, but these physical objects don't really give us a true representation of the Internet's size and scope.

To help people get their minds around just how big the Internet is, Health-Information-Technology.net has attempted to represent the size of the Internet by imagining each web page as a single piece of 8.5x11 printer paper.

With 500 sheets to a standard paper ream, that translates into 2 billion reams of paper!

With 3,000 square feet of paper per ream, that's 6 trillion square feet of coverage, or 1,136,363,636 square miles!

Together, all those printed sheets would paper the entire 2.85 million rentable square feet of space in the Empire State Building a full 2.1 million times! That's equivalent to covering the entire state of Alaska nearly 2,000 times, which is also enough to constitute a new solar system with 3 earths and 40 moons!

Infographic designed by Infographic World