If you thought a social media feed brimming with cat videos and late-night talk show clips was annoying, give it another five years, and you'll be longing for the days of BuzzFeed quiz results.
According to a recent Cisco report, global Web traffic is expected to increase almost three-fold over the next five years.
By 2018, mobile and fixed connections will reach a whopping 1.5 trillion gigabytes per year. That's 1.6 zettabytes, for anyone who's counting. (A zettabyte equals 1,000 exabytes, and precedes the yottabyte unit of measurement.)
In fact, the projected annual IP traffic in 2018 will be greater, Cisco said, than all IP traffic generated globally between 1984 and 2013 (1.3 zettabytes). That means folks will use the Internet more over the next four years than we have since the Web was invented.
And it's all because of mobile devices, smart TV sets, and the growing Internet of Things, which will help make history in the coming years.
According to Cisco, the majority of traffic will consist of videos (79 percent), and, for the first time, originate from devices other than PCs. Wi-Fi- and mobile-connected devices will account for 61 percent of IP traffic, while fixed connections will power only 39 percent—a drop from 56 percent in 2013.
These massive changes are already in motion, reflected by the upcoming FIFA World Cup 2014, set to kick off Thursday with millions of fans watching games and/or highlights over the Internet.
The host country is actually predicted to generate 4.3 exabytes of IP traffic—three times the monthly rate currently achieved by Brazilians. (For more on that, check out PCMag's roundup of the Fastest ISPs in Brazil.)
But that's only the beginning: In 2018, global IP traffic could reach 132 exabytes per month, which is approximately 8.8 billion screens streaming the World Cup final game in Ultra HD, 5.5 billion people binge-watching Game of Thrones season 4 in HD, 4.5 trillion YouTube clips, or 940 quadrillion text messages.
For a closer look at Cisco's report, watch the video below. The networking giant recently jumped headfirst into the IoT deep end, announcing a two-year plan to invest $1 billion in the expansion of its cloud infrastructure. The Intercloud will be used, in part, to support the Internet of Things, but PCMag's Samara Lynn is a little skeptical.