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How long the internet would be usable if all humans disappeared

Home> News

Published 16:23 23 Feb 2024 GMT

How long the internet would be usable if all humans disappeared

Some predict days, some predict hours.

Rebekah Jordan

Rebekah Jordan

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Featured Image Credit: Marco VDM/Bulgac/Getty Images
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People have been questioning how long the internet would be usable if there were no more humans around.

After all, there'd be no power, let alone anyone regulating or maintaining the internet.

So how long would it last?

The thread on Stack Exchange opened up the debate.

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The primary concern that respondents mentioned was the availability of power, to which the user adaliabooks expected the internet to last 'days at best.'

Their comment read: 'While I'm not sure about the infrastructure of the internet itself (which I think would probably last a little bit longer before catastrophic failure) the more pressing issue would be power.

Some predict the internet would last a couple of days if humans disappeared / Marco VDM/Getty Images
Some predict the internet would last a couple of days if humans disappeared / Marco VDM/Getty Images

'Without people running the power plants and managing the grids around the world the electricity would soon go out.'

To a degree, this makes sense as without humans, there's no electricity, and with no electricity, means no computers.

'So even if the few remaining humans are lucky enough to have a generator or be somewhere the power has lasted longer, most of the internet will have gone offline when the servers died due to lack of power,' adaliabooks added.

In response to their prediction, social media user, minseong, wrote with surprise: 'OH lmao I was expecting it to be like an hour, days is pretty cool.'

However, some argued that the internet's lifespan might be even shorter, expecting it to last no longer than a couple of hours.

Widespread power outages would cause servers to shut down rapidly and any servers without backup power would go down.

According to Stack Exchange user Faheim Arslan: 'Even then, the remaining people won't be able to use the net if they don't have backup or can't help in producing electricity.

Power would be the main problem in maintaining the internet /Bulgac/Getty Images
Power would be the main problem in maintaining the internet /Bulgac/Getty Images

'Those which have backups might work for a year, after which most satellites will fall back to the Earth. So you can say the max is 1 year, if both the servers, medium and the people survive.'

Another comment by pjz explained what would happen in terms of power, networking hardware and software.

For example, electricity would become unreliable, whilst unchecked fires and storms would chip away at the power grid.

'As many people have noted, as soon as the Great Disappearance happens, electricity will start to get spotty,' pjz stated.

However, urban areas may cope slightly better due to underground power lines and more dense grids.

'The Internet is designed for redundancy,' pjz continued.

Bandwidth availability would increase without human usage, so long as a 'defaultless router' can be accessed.

'Failure after that will start by breaking the network off into isolated sections (which can still be used to talk among themselves!), until eventually it's all in so many pieces that it effectively no longer exists.''

So people predict the internet to last anywhere from a couple of hours if humans were to go extinct, what do you think would happen?

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