Internet Is Everything

History of the Internet

Image courtesy of NapInterrupted

A couple weeks ago, our “Power of Mobile” blog post discussed how mobile has been dominating both the consumer and search process. Up next in our “Going Digital” blog post series, we explore “Internet is Everything,” specifically how the Internet has woven itself into all aspects of our life.

Here’s a little history lesson for you. We can trace what we know as the Internet back to the late 1950s and early ‘60s, but it really hit the mainstream in the 1990s with the advent of AOL and “You’ve Got Mail.” It’s also not to be confused with the “World Wide Web,” a network of Internet websites that came online in 1993, according to a History News Network article by Daniel Mallia. In fact, the World Wide Web celebrated its 25th anniversary on March 12, 2014. Pew Research Center commemorated the milestone with a series called The Web at 25 in the U.S. Pew authors Susannah Fox and Lee Rainie are behind the study and also wrote an accompanying article on the Internet that is part of the Pew Research Internet Project.

Image courtesy of Marcelo Graciolli

“The internet is rules (protocols) that enable computer networks to communicate with each other. The Web is a service that uses the network to allow computers to access files and pages that are hosted on other computers,” say Fox and Rainie in Web at 25.

The Internet is now available to most of the country and 40 percent of the world population, according to Internet Live Stats. At time of publication, there were almost 3 billion Internet users around the world. China by far has the most users, with over 600 million. The United States is in second with around 279 million.

Pew Research Findings

Since 1995, the Pew Research Center has been conducting research and documenting the explosive adoption of the Internet. According to Pew’s findings, 87 percent of Americans were using the Internet in 2014, compared to a tiny 14 percent in 1994. 97 percent of young adults ages 18 to 29 are using the Internet in 2014, along with 97 percent of those with college degrees. 90 percent of Internet users say the Internet has been a good thing for them personally, while 76 percent of Internet users say the Internet has been a good thing for society.

People use the Internet for both professional and personal use. Eight in ten U.S. adults or 81 percent use laptop and desktop computers at home, work, school or elsewhere. 90 percent of Internet users go online from home on a typical day, while 44 percent of Internet users go online at work.

Image courtesy of the Pew Research Center

About four in 10 adults or 39 percent feel they absolutely need to have Internet access. The Internet also tops the list of what would be most tough for users to give up, with 46 percent. In second place, 44 percent of adults said cell phones would be the most difficult to give up, but the fact is Internet is a big part of what makes cell phones so easy to use! (One third of cell phone owners say that their primary internet access point is their phone, not some other device such as a desktop or laptop computer). Television came in third, with 35 percent.

So why is the Internet so necessary? Pew has found that the Internet has a wide-ranging impacts on, “everything from: the way people get, share, and create news; the way they take care of their health; the way they perform their jobs; the way they learn; the nature of their political activity; their interactions with government; the style and scope of their communications with friends and family;  and the way they organize in communities,” according to Fox and Rainie in their study findings.

67 percent of Internet users say their online communication with family and friends has generally strengthened those relationships, say Fox and Rainie.

Future of the Internet

Image courtesy of Ted Eytan

Another Pew work by Rainie and Janna Anderson talks about digital life in 2025 and the future. Experts and technology builders were interviewed about where we will stand in 2025, and while there were a range of opinions, most agreed that many technology changes lay ahead that will have a positive impact on our lives. They predict that the Internet will be everywhere and will even be wearable, much like Google Glass right now.

“Experts foresee an ambient information environment where accessing the Internet will be effortless and most people will tap into it so easily it will flow through their lives ‘like electricity,’” Anderson and Rainie say. “They predict mobile, wearable, and embedded computing will be tied together in the Internet of Things, allowing people and their surroundings to tap into artificial intelligence-enhanced cloud-based information storage and sharing.”

Image courtesy of Free Press

Many of the experts however disagreed on the different ramifications that might occur with the advent of all this new technology. Some of the major concerns were over security and privacy, surveillance and interpersonal ethics, concerns that many already have now.

A Mashable article by Jason Abbruzzese also discusses what might happen in a few years, especially with all the net neutrality concerns nowadays. Net neutrality refers to “the principle that Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, and modes of communication.”

The Internet as we know it now is open and free. Net neutrality is the principle of open Internet, says the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC supports open Internet and the freedom of users to decide what applications and services they use, what information they share and what content they access.

“Once you’re online, you don’t have to ask permission or pay tolls to broadband providers to reach others on the network. If you develop an innovative new website, you don’t have to get permission to share it with the world,” the FCC says on their website.

In December 2010, the FCC released the , rules that required transparency and “prohibiting blocking and unreasonable discrimination to protect Internet openness.” However, federal courts have challenged the FCC, with the United States Court of Appeals affirming the FCC’s authority in January 2014 to regulate broadband Internet access service and “upheld the transparency rule, but vacated the no-blocking and no-unreasonable-discrimination rules.”

Image courtesy of DonkeyHotey

Not surprisingly, many are fearful that regulation might help or hurt our Internet freedom.

“There is no shortage of scaremongers who believe that the future of the Internet — and by some extension, humanity — relies on keeping the Internet an even, open and neutral platform for the flow of information,” Abbruzzese says. “It can be tough to tell whether the concern is legitimate.”

This debate will certainly go on and on and continue into 2025. President Obama is even weighing in on it now.

We’re super thankful for the Internet and know we couldn’t do any of the work we do without it! Do you think you can live without the Internet and using a computer? What do you think about net neutrality? Share your opinion by commenting below or interacting with us on social media (also powered by the Internet)!

For even more information, check out the of the complete report or read Wikipedia’s entry on the History of the Internet.