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Over the past two decades, the World Wide Web has been increasingly used by a rapidly growing number of users across the world and has become an indispensable medium in public, organizational, and personal communication. By 2010, the world Internet user population has exceeded 1,966 million, with a growth of 444.8% since 2000, and the Internet penetration had reached 28.7% worldwide (World Internet users and population stats, 2010). The users of the Web are increasingly diverse in terms of regions and languages, as users populations in developing countries have dramatically increased in the past decade. As of 2010, although North America, Oceania/Australia, and Europe have the highest Internet penetration rates (respectively 77.4%, 61.3%, and 58.4%), Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America/Caribbean have the greatest growths in user population since 2000 (respectively 2,357.3%, 1825.3%, and 1032.8%) (ibid). These fastest growing regions are followed by Asia (621.8%), which has the largest Internet user population of 825.1 million that accounts for 42% of the worldwide Internet user population (ibid). In terms of languages used on the Web, although English speaking users constitute the largest language group (27.3%), the number of Chinese speaking users has grown 1,277.4% since 2000 and constitutes the second largest user group (22.6%) only by a small margin (Top ten languages used in the Web). Arabic and Russian speaking user groups have also grown dramatically since 2000 (respectively 2,501.2% and 1,825.8%) (ibid).

These statistics of Web use in the past decade indicate that users of a diverse cultural backgrounds, and in particular, non-English speaking users have an increasingly significant impact on the nature of Web based communication across the globe. To understand the Web and Web based communication and, in application, to design usable web technology and artifacts for a “universe of users” (Bowie, 2009), technical and professional communicators must take it seriously the imperative of the consideration of culture and its impact of how users use technologies and information artifacts in their specific contexts.

References:

Top ten languages used in the Web. (2010, November 7, 2010). Miniwatts Marketing Group. Retrieved November 22, 2010, from http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm

World Internet users and population stats . (2010, November 7, 2010). Miniwatts Marketing Group. Retrieved November 22, 2010, from http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm