Back in the early days of the internet, it was actually fun and exciting to find traces of yourself online—remember egosurfing?
Now that we’re a couple of decades into the internet age, though, we’re more likely to think of our online presence with dread. Embarrassing photos and outdated dating profiles are bad enough, but there’s so much personal information that should be private floating around. Is it any wonder that people want to completely disappear from the internet?
NordVPN surveyed a little over 1,000 people in the US (18 and older) on how they feel about the internet. Strikingly, more than half said they would delete themselves totally, if only they could. A slightly lower percentage, 47%, said they don’t trust the internet. And 18% reported that they wish the internet didn’t exist at all. And 8% said they don’t use the internet—which seems a little hard to believe, honestly.
The company also asked what kinds of information people would or would't want others to see about them online. None of the stats in the chart below should be too surprising.
So what if you could turn yourself into a nonentity online? NordVPN asked whether people would pay for online anonymity, and if so, how much. Of the surveyed people who said they’d pay, 31% would go up to $100, and 12% would cough up between $101 and $500. And 3% would pay more than $1,000 to an online unknown.
You can find the full report at NordVPN’s website.