Digital Journal — After its 35th anniversary last year, the Internet is currently going through a mid-life crisis: It is embroiled in legal battles over piracy and P2P file-sharing; it feels guilty for misleading inquisitive kids into porn sites (“But Ma, I was only checking out whitehouse.com!”); and it’s constantly running from the clutches of monopolizing mega-corporations.
But the Internet should be consoled by the smiles of its many children — 812 million users globally. Like any parent proud of nurturing a life, the Internet has given society a technology that has become so pervasive only babies and great-grandparents don’t have email addresses. Deprive someone of the Internet for a month and they’ll soon be jonesing for their Onion headlines.
The revolution began in 1969, as “bits of meaningless test data flowed silently between two computers,” as CNN blandly described it. The U.S. Department of Defense and researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles had devised a plan to allow a computer in L.A. to communicate with one at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, California.
In order to access the two-computer network, which was then called ARPANET, programmers at UCLA were to type in “log,” and Stanford would reply with “in.” The UCLA programmers only got as far as “lo” before the Stanford machine crashed.
So the first instant message on what would become the Internet was “lo” — one more “L” and they would have preternaturally discovered the first online shortcut to express audible laughter.
Email appeared a few years later as the 1970s ushered in a core communications protocol called TCP/IP. The domain name system followed, which led to the development of the World Wide Web.
New branches of business grew from an “e” prefix boom: e-commerce, e-retail, e-books. It didn’t take long for music, news services and casinos to join the Internet family.
While the security and credibility of the Net will remain an issue for years to come, it can’t be denied that a pre-Internet life seems almost black-and-white in comparison to today’s technicolour. Not only has the Net saved each of us thousands of dollars in postage stamps, envelopes and fancy greeting cards, but close to five million blogs inform us what five million people are doing every minute — e.g., blogging in their pyjamas. Too much information? That’s been the hallmark of the Internet.
With info overload comes corporations looking to make a profit off our e-wanderlust. Monoliths like Microsoft capitalized on the Internet’s maturity and made Internet Explorer the prevailing browser tool, which soon became a target for disgruntled hackers. Users complained about spyware and constant patching requirements, and they began to look for alternative means of access.
Once the industry norm, Explorer is now facing increased competition from Firefox, courtesy of the open-source group the Mozilla Foundation. Since Firefox doesn’t use Explorer’s ActiveX code — which leaves sites open to drive-by hijackings — many frustrated IE users are turning to what the Internet is all about: freedom of choice.
Open-source technology represents the future of the Internet because the public can voice their frustrations and actually do something about it. There used to be a complacency that allowed corporate decisions to override virtual democracy. Now, Internet users are demanding progress and at the same time, helping a 35-year-old avert a mid-life crisis.
INTERNET BY NUMBERS
- Globally, about 812 million people use the Internet.
- Only 12.7% of the world’s population are online.
- The average user spends 48 minutes online per session.
- In Sweden, the country with the highest online penetration, 74% of the population use the Internet. In Canada, the figure is close to 64.
- Among 18- and 19-year-olds, 91% use email and 83% use instant messaging
- In 2003, 64% of Canadian households had one regular Internet user compared to 42% in 1999
This article is part of Digital Journal’s national magazine edition. Pick up your copy of Digital Journal in bookstores across Canada. Or subscribe to Digital Journal now, and receive 8 issues for $29.95 + GST ($48.95 USD).
