What would happen if the internet stopped working just for a week

Back in 1995, only a tiny portion of the world's population had even heard of the internet let alone used it. It was a novelty, mostly used by people in the West.

Flash forward two decades, and over 3.5 billion people now have an internet connection, which is nearly half the amount of people on this planet. And more and more are joining each day.

Therefore, for many, life without the internet seems to be unimaginable.

If the internet stopped working for a day, however, the world wouldn't be affected too much.

Aside from the majority of the population being unable to speak to clients and customers, and travel coming to a halt, most of the day would consist of running troubleshooting, unplugging and rebooting in any attempt to restore an internet connection.

Stine Lomborg at the University of Copenhagen said: 'The world wouldn’t fall apart if we didn’t have access to the internet for a day. But for most people, I think even one day without it would be terrifying.'

But, what about a week?

People would probably struggle within the first few hours of an internet outage / David Wall/Getty

According to the BBC: 'The modern power grid relies on the internet to coordinate power plants and electricity substations.

Without it, each country’s national grid has become unbalanced, and local outages escalate into a blackout for most of the world.

'Gas pipelines have shut down since they rely on power and the internet.'

'One of the biggest problems with the internet today is that people take it for granted – yet they don’t understand the degree to which we’ve allowed it to infiltrate almost every aspect of our lives.

They don’t even think about not having access to it,' said William Dutton at Michigan State University, and author of the book Society and the Internet.

The nightmare would reach new heights if the internet was down for a month.

The modern power grid relies on the internet to coordinate power plants /DNY59/Getty

Petrol stations rely on the internet to manage fuel tank levels, process transactions and order new deliveries.

Without fuel, supermarkets can't restock their shelves or deliver food.

As a result, the streets could potentially see riots rage across distribution depots.

Although military action would be called in for support, the real challenge would be ensuring everyone has enough to eat.

All in all, if the internet was to get back up and running after such an event, enough for everyone to comment on their experience online, I'm sure it would be remembered as the week from hell.

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