The Internet: An Idea that Grew to Span the World

By Erin McCarthy

The Internet has transformed the communications world like nothing else has ever before. The Internet is a worldwide mechanism for information broadcasting, and a medium for partnership and interaction between individuals and their computers. The Internet stands for one of the world’s most beneficial ways to research and develop information. The government and the industry have been partners in creating this amazing feature within technology.

This extensive information system is due to of what is called the National Information Infrastructure. The history behind the Internet is extremely complicated and involves many features. These features consist of technological, community and organizational characteristics. The technical fields of computer communications made the influence that the Internet has possible. 

What became the Internet was projected in a series of memos that were the first recorded descriptions of social interactions through computer networking. J.C.R. Licklider, who worked on developing information technology at MIT, wrote these memos in April 1963. In his memos he imagined a globally organized set of computers through which everyone could quickly access data and programs from any site.

This concept was very much like the Internet we have today. He was the head of the computer program at what became the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). While working at this job he convinced his fellow workers abut the importance of this networking system.

The Internet has changed so much over the two decades in which it came into existence for every day use. The Internet was conceived in an era or time-sharing on massive machines and continued to survive into the era of personnel computers. The most important fact is that the Internet started as a creation of a small band of dedicated researchers. The Internet has since grown to be a commercial success with billions of dollars of yearly revenue.
       
For more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._C._R._Licklider


Erin McCarthy is a freshman at St. Thomas Aquinas College majoring in Communication Arts. A member of STAC’s softball team, she is extremely interested in sports media.