Week 1 EOC: What is the Internet?

Even though it was started as a simple means of research and interdepartmental communication, the Internet itself is a community. It has become, in modern times, a sounding board, an informational outpost, a house of debauchery, a bastion of learning, and a place of fun simultaneously. It has become all of that and much more, even more than just about any imagination can fathom, and that is because it is comprised of every type of person (more or less) on this planet, each from their own individual place on it. “Although all these types of organizations are important for holding together the Internet, at the heart of the Internet are individual local networks.” (Gralla, Troller, p. 7). This world-wide community of people has laid claim to their rights from freedom of expression and information and they won’t be letting go of it anytime soon. In fact, the age of technology has embraced it, as we see more and more pieces of normal life being transferred into virtual, digital representations of ourselves and what people used to do “in the olden days.” Some may called it strange. Some may call it pathetic or antisocial. Some may hate technology and find difficulty in the inevitable change that comes with life. But whatever you wish to call it, at least call it progress. Personally, I may not have found my taste for Facebook and Twitter, but millions upon millions of other people have, and number do not lie as the money rolls in to business made of nothing but tiny pieces of code, 1’s and 0’s that somehow, amazingly end up as perceivably tangible things in front of us that we can see and experience. What is the Internet? Change. Electricity. Binary code. Whatever it is, it’s a community.