• How much information is in circulation on the internet (in gigabytes)?

  According to wikipedia internet data was estimated at close to 500 exabytes. 

• What proportion of the world’s population can now go online?

There are currently 1.2 billion users of the internet. 

• The number of people who could access the internet in 1995?

40 million people had access to the internet in 1995. 

Nature of Communication.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2332339,00.asp

http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/how-has-technology-changed-communication

I think communication has been changed greatly by the internet. People arent sending as many cards as they used to in exchange for sending e-cards. Communication has become less face to face and more screen to face. 

Nature of information

The nature of information has changed greatly because the internet is now the biggest recourse, with millions of books inside it and billions of articles. However people have to be smart about what they think is true because and Tom Dick or Harry could right anything on the internet but people have to be smart enough to think is this true or not. People used to have to go and read books if they wanted all of this information that you are making us find out. 

http://askville.amazon.com/computers-internet-changed-information/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=6098521

http://www.english-test.net/forum/ftopic55458.html

Privacy

People are having their privacy taking away from them because they are putting too much information up on the internet and people are able to see it and use it. Other people are able to steal card information and other personal details. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jun/12/what-is-an-internet-troll

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/13/online-privacy-legislation-internet-phone-data

Online safety

Depending on what things people use the internet for, depends on whether they are safe or not. Online safety can be helped by changing the browser settings. People need to use common sense on the internet, and if they aren't smart enough to know that you are the 1,000,000,000,000 visitor today then they shouldn't be allowed on the internet. 

http://kidshealth.org/parent/positive/family/net_safety.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/public-leaders-network/2011/jul/13/guardian-roundtable-online-safety

Business

The internet allows people to be entrapenurs in many different ways. It allows for businesses to cater to customers service needs and allows for quicker direct forms of communication then staying on hold for 22 minutes. However this isnt good for big businesses as they can't compete with the global scale that these businesses compete on. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14130854

http://www.pclink.co.uk/

Culture

The internet has made the world a much smaller place, because of this people are able to learn about other cultures, hence the world becoming more cultured, hopefully. 

http://webpages.scu.edu/ftp/mawong/hypertext2/linearhypertext.html

http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/fall01/McGrath/

WiFi Uptake

UK broadband uptake has steadily increased throughout the millenium. In 2010 uptake was 1t 78% in 2011 it dropped down to 77%.  However the superfast broadband that the government is rolling out has not been taken up as it thought it would be, which has only been 0.8%. Compared to other countries the UK has had poor uptake. Superfast broadband is described as >24 Mbps.