The Internet :: Exploratory Essays Research Papers

Introduction Welcome to a world beyond reality; a world full of problems, promise, and possibilities. You are now in hyperreality, virtual reality, or cyberspace. It is whatever you want it to be. "[T]he Internet is like a highway, feeding small communities and large cities, and connecting their loops, backroads and alleyways" (Estrada XU). In other words, the Internet is a network of networks-a web that connects a vast number of computers. Wait! Don't give up yet, it's easier than you think. Using the Internet isn't "rocket science". An area that was once only for researchers is now used by a wide range of people from elementary students to farmers. The internet is an interactive environment. In her book, The Internet Companion Plus, Tracy Laqey gives the difference between television and the Internet by saying that when it comes to television, "we are only the watchers, but with the Internet we are "the reporters, the viewers, and the production team" (3). The Internet has very few restrictions these days, so for the most part you are free to do and say whatever you choose. It is the value of what you say, not who you are, that gets people to listen. The Internet is an "open and sharing environment" (3), as well as a complicated environment. With every involved endeavor a certain amount of information is required to fully enjoy and benefit from the experience. As for the Internet, this information is at first overwhelming. Let's put aside the details of connecting the systems and the technicalities and concentrate on the actual usage of the web. The internet has made our lives easier through ingenious inventions like computeriz ed card catalogs and e-mail. But, in order to fully understand this huge system, we must first know where it came from. The Internet had a modest start as ARPANET, a U.S. Defense Department network, and was designed to withstand a nuclear bomb attack. Information could be put in many different places to avoid a centralized storage of information. It was later split into two networks, and from one of these networks the Internet was born. Today the Internet has evolved into a monster. In their book, The Mosaic Handbook, Dale Dougherty, Richard Koman, and Paula Ferguson describe the Internet as "a cultural icon . . . [it] has come to represent what the future looks like today" (2). The possibilities are endless, and although we won't list them all here, we will introduce a few.