Position Paper #2 - Digital Access

As many of you may know, Argentina is a country in South America. It is known for tango and the community's great love for fútbol. Argentina is a democracy and has a government set up very similar to the United States. Citizens have a comparable amount of freedom as us, Americans.

According to DataReportal, Argentina has a population of approximately 45.4 million people. Of those millions of people, 55.19 million have mobile connections. I'm not quite sure how that works. Maybe some of the dogs have cellular devices. That does make it clear that Argentina is a very connected country. Mobile phones are very accessible. Of those 55.19 million mobile users, 36.32 million people use the internet. That is about 80% of the entire population. Also, 36.00 million people from Argentina are active social media users. Which is 79.3% of the total population. 

In the past year, the population has grown by 412 thousand while the total amount of mobile connections has gone down by -2.6%. I assume that is because maybe, hear me out for a second, the babies can't find any use for the phones. While the total number of internet users has risen a staggering 3.5%, alongside the 5.9% of growth in active social media users. 

A demographic study of Argentina shows, that 51.2% of the population are women and the remaining 48.8% are men. The median age is 31.6, which could be a factor in why so many people are connected through the internet and mobile devices. Argentina is packed with urbanization and 92.2% of their country is urbanized. Argentina also has a high percentage of literacy, 99% of Argentinians can read and write.

Argentina also has a high percentage of technological device owners. Below are the stats, graciously, given to us by DataReportal. To break down this picture, 98.4% of the Argentina population has a mobile phone (of any kind). 98.0% of those mobile phone owners have smartphones. 81.4% have a laptop or a desktop computer. One interesting statistic is the percentage of virtual reality device owners, which is 4.5%. It surprises me because I don't know anyone who owns a VR device in America. Curious if I just don't have the right friends or if it's a difference in culture. 

Argentinians spend an average of 9 hrs and 39 mins on the internet daily. Time spent in front of a television (broadcast and streaming) is roughly 3 hrs and 55 mins. Similarly, the average amount of time someone from Argentina spends on social media is 3 hrs and 22 mins. The time spent streaming music is about 1 hr and 54 mins per day. The total amount of hours spent playing video games is 1 hr and 6 mins. 

To go into more detail about Argentina's internet usage, the percentage of internet users access their internet via mobile device. On average users aged 16 to 64 spend 4 hrs and 52 mins using internet on their mobile devices. The average speed of internet on mobile devices is 28.19 MBPS. Their average speed has gone up by 12.2% in the past year. While the average speed on fixed devices is 48.46 MBPS. The speed for fixed connections has gone up by 41.6%.

The next photograph depicts the percentage of different web browsers used by Argentinians.  The number one used web browser is Chrome. It leads with 84.5%, followed by an underwhelming 2nd place Safari with 5.9%.

The top 3 websites uses are Google.com, Facebook.com, and Youtube.com in that order. Google has the highest total visits per year with a whopping 1.20 billion visits. Facebook follows with 389 million visits per year and Youtube follows closely behind with 385 million visits per year. The following 2 top websites are Argentina-based websites. The 4th most visited website is Mercadoubre.com.ar. This website is the equivalent to our Amazon. It receives about 258 million visits per year. Finally, the 5th is Infobae.com. Infobae is a national news website for Argentina. It is visited 161 million times per year.

The last topic I want to discuss concerning digital access in Argentina is their social media usage. From the graphic below you can see that Argentina has a LARGE amount of social media users, approximately 36.00 million users. Which is 79.3% of their total population. The most used social media platform in Argentina is Youtube, which is expected considering it is the 3rd most visited website. The 2nd most used platform is Whatsapp. Whatsapp is a messaging platform used to send messages over the internet, instead of having to have a phone plan and network. The 3rd most used is Facebook, then right behind Facebook is Instagram.  One important statistic from DataReportal is the average amount of time per day spent using social media. Their average is 3 hours and 22 mins. My average screen time on my phone is double that amount.

Overall, I think the citizens of Argentina are very connected technologically. From the statistics above, it seems most technological devices are available and affordable to most people. I'm sure, much like other countries, geography and financial status do play a part in the accessibility of devices and the internet. Obviously, if you live in the woods where it is difficult to wire internet and electricity out there then that person might have trouble keeping a phone charged. Most digital innovations come from corporations.