Internet and Its Evolution

            The internet has changed since its creation. Due to its widespread usage many companies have adopted the internet for a lot of things. They use it for communication, advertisement, and storage. Yes, you can store a large amount of information and databases on the internet. For a lot of people the internet is indispensable, and because of its importance, an upgrade from time to time is needed. However the internet did not start in a simple way to understand its evolution, we need to understand first how and why it was created.

The first prototype of the internet was created by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during the Cold War. It was first created for the military objectives if the enemy tried to destroy communication the military could keep the flow of information through the internet. Or avoid the loss of information located in one place. If some place with important information has been attacked, they could transmit this information through the internet. They called this first internet the APARNET.

At the end of the 60s just four computers were connected to the APARNET, but in the 70s and 80s the use of internet evolved and began to be used in the academic world, predominantly in the US. In 1990, the British engineer Tim Bernes-Lee developed the World Wide Web. This allowed for direct dynamic interaction and interesting visuals.

1990 was the year that the internet became public. Anyone who had a computer could access the internet to send a message, read an e-mail or do research. The year that the internet expanded, browsers were also born. The first ones were Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. The possibility of talking with someone by “chat” called the attention of huge groups of people, and consequently, the attention of companies that wanted to earn money by using the internet, thus the creation of online stores (Banerjee 229).

There are four major types of internet. To be fair these types do not change the internet. These types change the connections, the velocity to access information inside the internet. The first internet connection was “dial-up,”. A connection were possible by phone cables. Another type was “Broadband Internet.”, this connection has a specific cable and connection for the internet. And the newest type of internet is the mobile internet like 3G and 4G that allows us to use the internet by cellphone.

The usage of internet is different for each country. Some countries like the US and Japan have a huge internet usage but the country with the fastest connection is South Korea. The country with the highest internet usage is China with 34% of its population followed by the US with 79% and then Japan with 80%. These numbers are huge if you consider all the people in these countries. The top three in speed connection are South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong.

            The internet never stops growing. Since 1990, it has been expanding with people, companies, and also artificial intelligence. We cannot measure how long the internet takes to change, we just know that each time you access the internet, something is different. Maybe not in your e-mail or website but in some place something changed a little bit. Some internets change more quickly in one country than another but this does not change the fact that internet expands.

One explanation of the internet was made by Leo Beranek “The Internet is one of the defining inventions of the twenty century, rubbing shoulders with such developments as aircraft, atomic energy, space exploration, and television,”. He says. He also said that no one could imagine that with the start of internet also came a communication revolution (Beranek 55). Finally, we know that the internet is nowadays an indispensable instrument. Everyone uses it and almost everyone needs it, for communication or fun. The internet has changed because the world needs it, the people need it, and companies need it. I love the internet and the power that it has given to us. 

Banerjee, S.; Hodge, A. “Internet Usage: A Within Race Analysis Race, Gender & Class” Vol. 14, No. 3/4 (2007), pp. 228-246. Jean Ait Belkhir, Race, Gender & Class Journal. Web. 04 April, 2014 <http://www.jstor.org/stable/41675301>

Liu, Y.; Wu, J. “Recent progress in the study of the next generation Internet in China”. Philosophical Transactions: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences
Vol. 371, No. 1987, Web science: a new frontier (28 March 2013), pp. 1-20. Web. 04 April, 2014 <http://www.jstor.org/stable/23364189>

Beranek, L. “Massachusetts Historical Review” Vol. 2, (2000), pp. 55-75
Massachusetts Historical Society. Web. 04 April, 2014 <http://www.jstor.org/stable/25081152>