Generally speaking, a high digital quality of life indicates that a country has done a good job of providing internet access to its people. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re perfect in every single way. In Surfshark’s latest iteration of its Digital Quality of Life Index, it highlighted areas where these countries could stand to improve.
For example, France has the highest digital quality of life of all, but it still ranked 31st in terms of overall internet usage. This seems to suggest that not enough French people are on the internet, with just 92% compared to Norway’s 98%, and there are several more examples that can be seen throughout this report. Some countries ranked extremely low despite their high score, such as Finland which ranked second overall but came in 51st in terms of fixed internet speed growth.
Furthermore, Denmark was the third highest ranking country in the digital quality of life index, yet it can still improve quite a bit in mobile internet affordability. The high cost of mobile internet in the Scandinavian nation led to it getting ranked 33rd in this metric, clearly showing that there is room for improvement on this front.
The same can be said of Germany, which came in fourth overall. Much like Finland Germany left a lot to be desired in fixed internet speed growth, getting ranked abysmally low at 75th in this metric. This explains why it lags behind some other countries despite having extremely positive numbers in practically every other metric that was factored into the index’s rankings.
Luxembourg rounded off the top five list, but it got an extremely poor ranking of 98th when zeroing in on the growth of its mobile internet speeds. As for Spain, the sixth highest ranking country overall, mobile internet speeds lagged considerably behind those of its peers. This resulted in it getting ranked 40th in terms of mobile internet speeds.
Estonia saw tremendous growth this past year to reach 7th place, yet it only managed to get to 64th place in terms of fixed internet speed growth. Though its 64th place ranking put it ahead of Germany in this metric, inefficiencies in other areas prevented it from cracking the top 5.
Austria did surprisingly poorly in fixed internet speed growth. Despite a high overall ranking of 8, the Central European country couldn’t even enter the top 100 in terms of fixed internet speed growth, instead languishing close to the bottom of the table in 118th place.
Switzerland, generally seen as a developed and progressive country in all walks of life, reached 9th place. In spite of this, its poor performance in mobile speed growth, 74th out of all countries included in this list, held it behind considerably.
Another example of an area where many countries could improve is in data protection. Perhaps the best example of this is Singapore, where poor data protection laws restricted it from moving past 10th place overall.
Read next: ChatGPT’s Web Traffic Is Back On Track After Experiencing Massive Dip In Summer Of 2023
For example, France has the highest digital quality of life of all, but it still ranked 31st in terms of overall internet usage. This seems to suggest that not enough French people are on the internet, with just 92% compared to Norway’s 98%, and there are several more examples that can be seen throughout this report. Some countries ranked extremely low despite their high score, such as Finland which ranked second overall but came in 51st in terms of fixed internet speed growth.
Furthermore, Denmark was the third highest ranking country in the digital quality of life index, yet it can still improve quite a bit in mobile internet affordability. The high cost of mobile internet in the Scandinavian nation led to it getting ranked 33rd in this metric, clearly showing that there is room for improvement on this front.
The same can be said of Germany, which came in fourth overall. Much like Finland Germany left a lot to be desired in fixed internet speed growth, getting ranked abysmally low at 75th in this metric. This explains why it lags behind some other countries despite having extremely positive numbers in practically every other metric that was factored into the index’s rankings.
Luxembourg rounded off the top five list, but it got an extremely poor ranking of 98th when zeroing in on the growth of its mobile internet speeds. As for Spain, the sixth highest ranking country overall, mobile internet speeds lagged considerably behind those of its peers. This resulted in it getting ranked 40th in terms of mobile internet speeds.
Estonia saw tremendous growth this past year to reach 7th place, yet it only managed to get to 64th place in terms of fixed internet speed growth. Though its 64th place ranking put it ahead of Germany in this metric, inefficiencies in other areas prevented it from cracking the top 5.
Austria did surprisingly poorly in fixed internet speed growth. Despite a high overall ranking of 8, the Central European country couldn’t even enter the top 100 in terms of fixed internet speed growth, instead languishing close to the bottom of the table in 118th place.
Switzerland, generally seen as a developed and progressive country in all walks of life, reached 9th place. In spite of this, its poor performance in mobile speed growth, 74th out of all countries included in this list, held it behind considerably.
Another example of an area where many countries could improve is in data protection. Perhaps the best example of this is Singapore, where poor data protection laws restricted it from moving past 10th place overall.
Read next: ChatGPT’s Web Traffic Is Back On Track After Experiencing Massive Dip In Summer Of 2023
