What Is The Internet!?

The Internet is something many of us not only use daily, or even more than once a day. We rely on it for things such as news, school assignments and for our jobs, like spreadsheets and emailing one another. But we also use it for leisure purposes, like online shopping, weather forecasts, vacation planning, etc. And because there is just so much information online, the question of what is the Internet, becomes a very interesting one if you think about it.

So when did the Internet originate? Internet-starter-guide.com explains that it was first thought up by a man named Licklider. In 1962 he thought of an idea to have a global network of computers that would be linked together. A lot of time was spent doing research and figuring out what this network would be like. In 1969, ARPANET(United States Defense Advanced Research Project Agency) was formed and it linked together four universities. The system was not perfect but it was definitely a giant step to lead to the Internet we know and use today. Decades later, in 1993, images were able to be viewed online, which as you can imagine made a huge difference in how web-pages were viewed to the public. Before the mid-1990s, the Internet was used mostly by scientists and experts. The public was really only online when Netscape Communications was formed and a browser was released that the public could use.

The Internet is definitely the first of its kind in terms of the mass communication it allows to occur. But you might be wondering: So what exactly is the Internet? It is a system of networks that, according to Centerspan.org, cooperate with each other to exchange data, through telephone wires and satellites. TCP/IP is the "language" that computers use. That stands for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. The networks that make up the Internet allow web-sites to form, and once those web-sites are formed, Internet users can browse them. Packet switching is something else that contributes to what the Internet is. Cnri.reston.va.us does a good job of explaining packet switching by comparing it to postcards. Postcards can get lost, or not delivered in time. You can send a postcard but there is no guarantee the person you are sending it to will get it in time, or even at all. Postcards are compared to Internet packets. TCP, the Internet "language" is what we have to prevent this from happening when we are on the Internet. TCP will find packets that might have been lost or put them back in order. This of course happens very very fast, but in essence what it does is make sure everything works together and links correctly when we are trying to browse, just so nothing gets lost or messed up as we click around.

A lot of people think the Internet and the World Wide Web (also known as the WWW or the Web) are the same thing, but in fact they are not. The definition of the Web, according to Centerspan.org, is that it is a hyper-textual, multimedia interface to the Internet- put more simply, you can point and click with a mouse to navigate your way through different web-sites and different content on pages. Hypertexts are what make up the Web, they are what allow you to click from one site to another- basically, the blue, underlined text you see on any web-page you visit. Basically, the WWW is just one component of the Internet. An example of another component to the Internet would be e-mail systems- the ability to send electronic messages to people throughout the world. The WWW revolutionized the Internet because it allowed all web-sites to link together and there were no gaps or networking issues when it came to linking everything together.

The Internet has especially effected the way we communicate with others, and communications as a field. Without it, most ways of communication are one-way information sources. For example, we get information from the news channels on TV or from a newspaper, but we have no way of putting our own input into what we are hearing or reading. However, if we are getting our information on the Web, we often times have a place to express our feelings and share them with everyone else out there. The same goes for communicating with others; before its existence, it would be virtually impossible to ever get in contact with somebody from, say, South Africa. But today, that is as easy as turning on your computer and going to a blogging, social networking or practically any other web-site that allows people to chat with one another.

How many people use the Internet today? There is no way to know for sure exactly, and numbers vary greatly. But some sources, including Internet-starter-guide.com, state that there may be one billion people who use the Internet. That’s a lot of people who are all using a common tool. The place where it is used most frequently is according to figures, North American. I have always heard a statistic that three out of four Internet users are in North America, which seems like it could be accurate. People in Australia and then those in Europe come in behind North America. The statistics vary greatly for how often people use it, why they use it, etc. But no matter how mnay people use it and where they live, one things for certain- the Internet has revolutionized the way we collect and share information.