The World Wide Web

The internet has become such a common part of the modern world that we use it for almost everything these days. The internet became public in the early 1990’s, before then it was used by some universities, scientists and some parts of the government. Back then it was used for text documents and for productive reasons. When the internet was invented it did not have the same reaction as when NASA first put ‘man, there was no same ‘break through’ reaction, or the same usefulness and benefits of the cure for polio; as you couldn’t do much with it as first. Fast forward a few decades and the world we live in revolves around the internet.

For instance, when I was at home in Fiji having dinner with my family, the power went off (as it always does) and once again we found ourselves sitting in the dark eating dinner by candlelight. This sounds like a beautiful way to have dinner with your family, however we could not enjoy it as we all sat there moaning about the internet. I wanted to talk to my friends on Facebook and go on Brown Cardigan (one of my guilty pleasures), mum needed to send her boss her proposal for work via e-mail, and dad was downloading songs for his new running playlist. 10 years ago we would have pulled out a deck of cards and played our infamous games of ‘hell’ (the game is called that). Now however, because the internet has abled us to undertake and complete so much more work faster and easier, we panic when we don’t have access to it.

For instance, all my lectures are on the internet now, If I can’t make a lecture or a tutorial I don’t freak out because I think “well hey, i’ll just go online and see what I missed”. When mum asked me why I wasn’t at a lecture, I responded with “I don’t need to go, it’s online”, she was confused because she attended every single one of her lectures and tutorials at university because if you didn’t, you were pretty screwed for the weeks work.

New laws have had to be put in place because of instances that have happened because of the internet. Countries like North Korea and Malaysia are infamous for the censorship of their internet and we are very cautious to remind children that what you do on the internet is there forever. You can delete something you have posted or done, however it remains in ‘space’ and is never truly ‘gone’. Even though you can’t see it anymore, people who know how to access that information can retrieve it.

Our world is ever changing and our dependency on certain materials are also ever changing. Our current dependency is the internet, history shows us that the internet will mostly likely die out and something bigger, better and cheaper will take it’s place. Many believe the internet has hit it’s maximum capability, I disagree. Maybe over the next few decades we will have global internet, no need for phone plans, companies like Telstra will slowly die out because the internet will be our major source for communication.

Who knows where we will be in the next hundred years, however, I believe that the internet will be there, bigger and better than ever.