Here’s what our web addiction looks like in 2016

We’re on pace to generate 1.3 zettabytes of data in 2016, about four times more than we create today, according to the latest data out from Cisco.

To put that in perspective, Cisco helpfully tells us that’s more than 38 million DVDs streamed in an hour. Or, you can think of it as a 1 followed by 21 zeros. The telecom gear maker offered up its fifth annual assessment of future broadband growth on fixed, managed and wireless networks around the world. And to no one’s surprise, as individuals, households and countries we’re just going to keep boosting our broadband use. Around the world last year people generated 30.7 exabytes of data per month from a total of 10.3 billion connections. That’s a lot until you compare it to Cisco’s projections of the world generating roughly 110 exabytes per month from 18.9 billion connections. That’s a ton of growth, so what do the stats really tell us? Broadly it tells us the growth comes from existing users doing more online while toting more devices, and also from people around the world without connections today who are joining the World Wide Web. Cisco estimates that on average, individuals generated an average of 11.5 gigabytes of data per month. That’s a lot until you compare it to Cisco’s projections of an individual consuming an average of 32.3 GB per month. And as the chart below shows, we’ll be online and so will our vehicles and homes.