Week 4

United Nations Human Development Index Data — Mobile phone subscriptions (per 100 people)

The following grafts matter because they challenge our notion about technology in several ways.

The first is that where you stand today in terms of phone usage does not guarantee that this form of communication will continue spreading.

This is true of some of the highest-ranking nations in the Human Development Index and for low ranking nations as well.

We will learn that Hong Kong is a beast when it comes to mobile communication. This is even more evident in the recent resistance against the Chinese government in the past few months.

All this data will beg the question,

Why are so many people in Finland dropping phone subscriptions?

This is likely the direction I will head into next week.

……………

Top 5 and Bottom 5 countries in the year 2000 in terms of Mobile Phone subscriptions per 100 people (from 2000 to 2017).

Top 5 and Bottom 5 countries in the year 2017 in terms of Mobile Phone subscriptions per 100 people (from 2000 to 2017).

I took the top 5 from the year 2000 and the year 2017 to visually compare the growth. (If you count 9 that is because Hong Kong was on both charts.)

As you can see even with a good start Italy, Israel, Austria, and Iceland had low growth compared to other nations.

This is especially alarming for Italy, Austria, and Israel. All three of which had peaked in subscriptions in years prior. For this reason, it is unlikely the slow growth is due to population sizes or a peak in demand for subscriptions, as we have a higher capacity for subscriptions in these populations.

When examing the top twenty nations on the Human Development Index. More than half follow this trend. (11 to be exact, all highlighted.)

Highlighted in orange here is Finland that saw a 22.9% decrease in subscriptions in a 5 year period.

The next three charts illustrate this.

The first is a graft of all 20 nations.

The second tracks in red the decline of all 11.

The third illustrates the track of Finland.

Titanic Data

Passenger class of those who died on Titanic.