Technology

Which Country Has the Best Digital Well-Being in 2023?

Published

1 year ago

December 18, 2023

Surfshark

Featured Creator

Article/Editing:

Pallavi Rao

A map ranking 121 countries by their digital well-being score.

Which Country Has the Best Digital Well-Being in 2023?

The average person spends close to seven hours every day looking at a screen, whether for work, entertainment, or communication, highlighting how digital human life has become.

And just like how physical well-being differs from place to place, so too does digital well-being.

According to SurfShark’s 2023, Digital Quality of Life Index, some countries do a better job than others in providing accessible, and affordable internet and digital services, leading to better digital well-being.

They rank 121 countries (amounting to 92% of the world’s population) on five key metrics:

Internet affordability: How long do people have to work to afford a stable internet connection? More affordable internet has a positive effect on digital well-being.
Internet quality: How fast and stable is internet connectivity? Fast and stable internet helps communication, work-efficiency, and consumption of high-quality content.
E-infrastructure: How developed and inclusive the existing electronic infrastructure is, allowing internet use for varied activities.
E-security: Ability to counter cybercrimes and protect online privacy.
E-government: Digitization of government services, minimizing bureaucracy and corruption, and increasing transparency.

They assign scores on each indicator, which weighted equally, creates one rank for each country. Visit SurfShark’s methodology section for their detailed breakdown of sources, scores, and rankings.

Ranking Countries By Digital Well-Being in 2023

The tagline of the 2023 report is “Europe leads the Digital Quality of Life Index.” This is because the first nine spots of the digital well-being ranks go to European countries.

They’re led by France which ranks first in internet affordability, fifth in quality, and has a top-20 ranking in electronic infrastructure, security, and government.

Here’s the full breakdown of each country’s overall rank, as well as their per metric rank.

Rank	Country	Internet Affordability	Internet Quality	E-Infrastructure	E-Security	E-Govt
1	🇫🇷 France	1	5	16	13	11
2	🇫🇮 Finland	11	24	8	11	3
3	🇩🇰 Denmark	29	4	2	13	5
4	🇩🇪 Germany	7	40	12	5	22
5	🇱🇺 Luxembourg	2	31	11	26	23
6	🇪🇸 Spain	14	9	26	9	21
7	🇪🇪 Estonia	17	44	15	2	6
8	🇦🇹 Austria	5	66	24	11	15
9	🇨🇭 Switzerland	9	7	3	29	29
10	🇸🇬 Singapore	4	3	9	56	1
11	🇸🇪 Sweden	25	27	1	13	13
12	🇳🇱 Netherlands	38	18	4	16	10
13	🇱🇹 Lithuania	18	23	25	2	30
14	🇷🇴 Romania	3	12	61	6	62
15	🇬🇧 UK	22	32	13	23	8
16	🇯🇵 Japan	15	25	14	33	9
17	🇮🇱 Israel	21	17	21	32	18
18	🇵🇱 Poland	24	22	37	10	37
19	🇺🇸 U.S.	32	6	5	43	2
20	🇰🇷 South Korea	31	64	7	31	4
21	🇧🇪 Belgium	43	47	23	1	39
22	🇨🇦 Canada	51	2	10	37	12
23	🇮🇪 Ireland	44	36	22	20	26
24	🇮🇹 Italy	47	33	30	19	19
25	🇨🇿 Czechia	27	45	31	4	48
26	🇳🇴 Norway	56	43	6	24	20
27	🇳🇿 New Zealand	19	46	18	36	14
28	🇱🇻 Latvia	39	20	39	20	38
29	🇵🇹 Portugal	84	28	32	6	27
30	🇦🇺 Australia	8	72	20	41	7
31	🇨🇾 Cyprus	20	59	27	26	42
32	🇲🇹 Malta	49	34	19	30	25
33	🇸🇰 Slovakia	33	41	38	16	59
34	🇭🇺 Hungary	59	15	44	24	45
35	🇸🇮 Slovenia	50	39	34	28	28
36	🇭🇷 Croatia	41	68	40	16	56
37	🇲🇾 Malaysia	26	13	33	48	32
38	🇦🇪 UAE	63	1	17	90	17
39	🇬🇷 Greece	75	81	60	6	46
40	🇧🇬 Bulgaria	36	89	75	22	55
41	🇺🇾 Uruguay	55	49	42	35	49
42	🇨🇱 Chile	61	11	35	49	31
43	🇦🇷 Argentina	83	35	48	33	40
44	🇨🇳 China	34	10	49	79	16
45	🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia	74	58	28	42	34
46	🇺🇦 Ukraine	53	75	41	39	51
47	🇰🇿 Kazakhstan	10	61	53	86	44
48	🇶🇦 Qatar	46	19	29	67	58
49	🇧🇷 Brazil	76	8	51	79	24
50	🇷🇸 Serbia	60	54	65	38	43
51	🇹🇭 Thailand	91	14	47	60	36
52	🇮🇳 India	28	16	91	66	35
53	🇷🇺 Russia	69	51	46	56	47
54	🇲🇩 Moldova	30	29	76	52	69
55	🇹🇷 Turkey	65	77	50	53	33
56	🇻🇳 Vietnam	16	30	57	94	63
57	🇧🇭 Bahrain	57	48	36	68	57
58	🇨🇴 Colombia	66	42	63	54	50
59	🇵🇪 Peru	100	37	64	46	54
60	🇵🇭 Philippines	104	21	54	45	64
61	🇴🇲 Oman	40	74	43	88	53
62	🇨🇷 Costa Rica	82	52	52	59	71
63	🇰🇼 Kuwait	35	26	45	104	66
64	🇲🇽 Mexico	93	56	59	70	52
65	🇬🇪 Georgia	48	102	55	43	80
66	🇲🇰 North Macedonia	67	76	71	50	68
67	🇮🇩 Indonesia	90	90	72	61	41
68	🇦🇱 Albania	98	79	78	46	60
69	🇦🇲 Armenia	42	87	74	74	70
70	🇧🇾 Belarus	37	71	62	76	86
71	🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan	6	88	98	93	85
72	🇿🇦 South Africa	52	63	94	72	61
73	🇪🇨 Ecuador	96	50	70	76	72
74	🇦🇿 Azerbaijan	87	93	66	64	78
75	🇲🇦 Morocco	72	94	87	40	90
76	🇰🇪 Kenya	97	92	68	65	75
77	🇲🇪 Montenegro	70	96	56	74	81
78	🇵🇦 Panama	109	38	79	81	74
79	🇩🇴 Dominican Republic	106	73	81	56	79
80	🇲🇺 Mauritius	95	101	83	63	67
81	🇵🇾 Paraguay	105	53	77	61	84
82	🇧🇩 Bangladesh	77	65	84	85	73
83	🇹🇳 Tunisia	79	106	89	54	77
84	🇧🇦 Bosnia & Herzegovina	54	100	73	87	97
85	🇯🇴 Jordan	107	55	67	110	65
86	🇱🇰 Sri Lanka	13	99	103	100	87
87	🇪🇬 Egypt	102	83	96	68	76
88	🇳🇬 Nigeria	108	62	93	73	88
89	🇲🇳 Mongolia	85	105	69	102	82
90	🇹🇹 Trinidad & Tobago	117	60	80	95	95
91	🇯🇲 Jamaica	115	78	86	89	94
92	🇩🇿 Algeria	81	91	82	95	107
93	🇵🇰 Pakistan	45	97	101	101	83
94	🇵🇹 Nepal	58	85	95	98	104
95	🇮🇷 Iran	68	104	58	120	92
96	🇬🇭 Ghana	103	86	108	83	89
97	🇱🇦 Laos	23	80	97	102	115
98	🇧🇯 Benin	114	107	114	50	93
99	🇸🇳 Senegal	80	110	99	91	100
100	🇧🇴 Bolivia	89	103	90	108	98
101	🇸🇻 El Salvador	113	69	88	114	103
102	🇿🇲 Zambia	64	120	107	71	106
103	🇨🇮 Ivory Coast	119	112	109	83	96
104	🇬🇹 Guatemala	112	57	100	114	91
105	🇰🇭 Cambodia	92	84	85	119	108
106	🇻🇪 Venezuela	88	70	92	110	117
107	🇺🇬 Uganda	116	108	112	81	99
108	🇧🇼 Botswana	78	98	104	97	112
109	🇦🇴 Angola	12	116	116	112	109
110	🇳🇦 Namibia	86	115	110	98	102
111	🇧🇫 Burkina Faso	99	67	117	78	114
112	🇲🇱 Mali	121	114	105	91	113
113	🇹🇿 Tanzania	101	95	111	114	101
114	🇭🇳 Honduras	111	82	102	118	119
115	🇿🇼 Zimbabwe	120	111	106	105	111
116	🇨🇲 Cameroon	118	113	113	106	110
117	🇹🇯 Tajikistan	110	119	115	109	105
118	🇪🇹 Ethiopia	71	117	119	106	116
119	🇲🇿 Mozambique	94	109	118	112	118
120	🇨🇩 DRC	73	118	121	117	121
121	🇾🇪 Yemen	62	121	120	121	120

Singapore, at 10th, is the highest ranked non-European country on the digital well-being index, followed by Japan at 16th.

Last year’s top-scoring country, Israel drops down to 17th in this edition, and the U.S., and South Korea round out the top 20.

Trends in Digital Quality of Life

Surfshark’s extensive number-crunching allowed them to generate a few deeper insights.

While it is true that wealthier nations generally have better digital well-being—because of the money available to invest in improving key metrics—Surfshark found 22 countries that exceeded expectations in their per-capita GDP bracket. Their higher scores in electronic security, infrastructure, and government improved their overall digital well-being rank.

A chart showing that some countries with lower GDP have improved their digital well-being by prioritizing e-government services.

A majority of these nations are from Asia and Eastern Europe: Philippines, Vietnam, Ukraine, Moldova, Thailand, Serbia, Croatia to name a few.

In fact, SurfShark also found that improving e-government scores particularly had the strongest correlation (0.94) with a better digital quality of life. On the other hand, internet affordability demonstrated the lowest correlation with overall digital well-being, at 0.67.

A chart showing the correlation between each digital quality of life metric and final digital well-being rank.

This underscores the outsized role in providing other services through the internet, as opposed to just improving the internet itself.

This article was published as a part of Visual Capitalist's Creator Program, which features data-driven visuals from some of our favorite Creators around the world.

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Technology

Visualizing AI vs. Human Performance in Technical Tasks

AI systems have seen rapid advancements, surpassing human performance in technical tasks such as advanced math and visual reasoning.

Published

14 hours ago

April 25, 2025

Kayla Zhu

A line chart showing AI vs human performance in various technical tasks

AI vs. Human Performance in Technical Tasks

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

The gap between human and machine reasoning is narrowing—and fast.

Over the past year, AI systems have continued to see rapid advancements, surpassing human performance in technical tasks where they previously fell short, such as advanced math and visual reasoning.

This graphic visualizes AI systems’ performance relative to human baselines for eight AI benchmarks measuring tasks including:

Image classification
Visual reasoning
Medium-level reading comprehension
English language understanding
Multitask language understanding
Competition-level mathematics
PhD-level science questions
Multimodal understanding and reasoning

This visualization is part of Visual Capitalist’s AI Week, sponsored by Terzo. Data comes from the Stanford University 2025 AI Index Report.

An AI benchmark is a standardized test used to evaluate the performance and capabilities of AI systems on specific tasks.

AI Models Are Surpassing Humans in Technical Tasks

Below, we show how AI models have performed relative to the human baseline in various technical tasks in recent years.

Year	Perfomance relative to the human baseline (100%)	Task
2012	89.15%	Image classification
2013	91.42%	Image classification
2014	96.94%	Image classification
2015	99.47%	Image classification
2016	100.74%	Image classification
2016	80.09%	Visual reasoning
2017	101.37%	Image classification
2017	82.35%	Medium-level reading comprehension
2017	86.49%	Visual reasoning
2018	102.85%	Image classification
2018	96.23%	Medium-level reading comprehension
2018	86.70%	Visual reasoning
2019	103.75%	Image classification
2019	36.08%	Multitask language understanding
2019	103.27%	Medium-level reading comprehension
2019	94.21%	English language understanding
2019	90.67%	Visual reasoning
2020	104.11%	Image classification
2020	60.02%	Multitask language understanding
2020	103.92%	Medium-level reading comprehension
2020	99.44%	English language understanding
2020	91.38%	Visual reasoning
2021	104.34%	Image classification
2021	7.67%	Competition-level mathematics
2021	66.82%	Multitask language understanding
2021	104.15%	Medium-level reading comprehension
2021	101.56%	English language understanding
2021	102.48%	Visual reasoning
2022	103.98%	Image classification
2022	57.56%	Competition-level mathematics
2022	83.74%	Multitask language understanding
2022	101.67%	English language understanding
2022	104.36%	Visual reasoning
2023	47.78%	PhD-level science questions
2023	93.67%	Competition-level mathematics
2023	96.21%	Multitask language understanding
2023	71.91%	Multimodal understanding and reasoning
2024	108.00%	PhD-level science questions
2024	108.78%	Competition-level mathematics
2024	102.78%	Multitask language understanding
2024	94.67%	Multimodal understanding and reasoning
2024	101.78%	English language understanding

From ChatGPT to Gemini, many of the world’s leading AI models are surpassing the human baseline in a range of technical tasks.

The only task where AI systems still haven’t caught up to humans is multimodal understanding and reasoning, which involves processing and reasoning across multiple formats and disciplines, such as images, charts, and diagrams.

However, the gap is closing quickly.

In 2024, OpenAI’s o1 model scored 78.2% on MMMU, a benchmark that evaluates models on multi-discipline tasks demanding college-level subject knowledge.

This was just 4.4 percentage points below the human benchmark of 82.6%. The o1 model also has one of the lowest hallucination rates out of all AI models.

This was major jump from the end of 2023, where Google Gemini scored just 59.4%, highlighting the rapid improvement of AI performance in these technical tasks.

To dive into all the AI Week content, visit our AI content hub, brought to you by Terzo.