What is the Internet?
The Internet is a worldwide network of billions of computers and electronic devices that allows users to access almost any information. It’s also become a separate ecosystem that fuels creativity and self-expression through social media and online content sharing, offers e-commerce for businesses and consumers alike, and allows people to perform countless tasks from the comfort of their homes. To use the Internet, a computer must first connect to an Internet Service Provider (ISP) via cable or satellite and run a program that is compatible with the protocol used by the ISP to transmit data over the internet. A user can then access the Internet through a web browser, which allows them to visit websites. These websites can contain everything from information on the latest cancer research to tips and tricks for playing a video game. The Internet also constantly expands, with new pages being added all the time. One of the most significant things that makes the Internet so powerful is its ability to connect computers across a wide range of hardware and software. It’s the equivalent of two different countries speaking a variety of languages, but with standardized communication methods that make it easy to understand each other. To accomplish this, the creators of the Internet created a set of standardized communications protocols. These protocols were designed to be as versatile as possible, allowing any computer to communicate with any other. To accomplish this, the Internet uses a technology called packets to send information between two or more computers. In 1969, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the U.S. government created a system called ARPANet. Its goal was to enable research computers at one institution to communicate with research computers at another, regardless of their physical location or the type of equipment they were using. ARPANet paved the way for the Internet we know and love today. The current internet is known as the World Wide Web, and it’s a large part of what makes the Internet so great. Before the World Wide Web, the Internet was a series of text-based pages that were useful for scientific reports or government images. Then in 1989, Oxford-trained computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented a way to create websites that were more user-friendly, using an encoding technique known as hypertext markup language, or HTML. This allowed a single website to contain links to other related websites. These links are often blue and underlined, and when clicked, a page will load at the new site. This feature is what gives the Internet its nickname: the World Wide Web. It also allows you to manage your bank account, shop online, and do almost anything else you can imagine. Just be sure to keep in mind that the Internet is a giant pool of information, and it’s important to pay attention to the source of your information. Just like with television, magazines and books, not all information is reliable. In fact, the Internet can be a source of misinformation that can lead to serious problems.