The Interestingnet Essay Research Paper The Interestingnet

The Inter(esting)net Essay, Research Paper The Inter(esting)net With only 1000 or so networks in the mid 1980’s, the Internet has become tremendous technological change to society over the past few years. In 1994, more than twenty-five million people gained access to the Internet (Groiler..). The Internet users are mainly from the United States of America and Europe, but other countries around the world will be connected soon as improvements of communication lines are made. The Internet originated in the United States Defense Department’s ARPAnet (Advanced Research Project Agency, produced by the Pentagon) Project in 1969 (Krol). Military planners sought to design a computer networking system that could withstand an attack such as a nuclear war. In the 1980’s, the

National Science Foundation built five Superconductor Computer Centers to give several universities academic access to high powered computers formerly available to only the United State’s military (Krol). The National Science Foundation then built its own network chaining more universities together. Later, the network connections were being used for purposes unrelated to the National Science Foundation’s idea such as the universities sending electronic mail (today, it is understood as Email). The United States government then helped pushed the evolution of the Internet, calling the project: Information Super Highway (Groiler..). In the early 1990’s the trend then boomed. Businesses soon connected to the Internet, and started using the Internet as a way of saving money

through advertising products and electronic mailing (Abbot). Communications between different companies also arose due to the convenience of the Internet. Owners of personal computers soon became eager to connect to the Internet. Through a modem or Ethernet adapter (computer hardware devices that allow a physical connection to Internet), home computers can now be made to be accessible to the Internet (Groiler..). New Internet servers have evolved since the National Sciences Foundation’s basic idea back in the 1980’s (Krol). The majority of the home users subscribe to services such as Netscape, Prodigy, America Online, and CompuServe. These services are connected to the Internet and provide user-friendly access to the Internet for a reasonable monthly fee. These services are

connected to a main server called the World Wide Web. The World Wide Web is a service that is defined as global international networking (Abbot). The Web makes all of the systems from other countries work together with compatibility. Thus, allowing the Internet to be internationally user-friendly. The United State’s stock market has greatly benefited due to sudden interest and popularity in the Internet. Stock holders with share of Internet related companies have noticed a skyrocket in the prices over a short period of time. The Internet holds an endless amount of information. From Chia Pets, to vacation sites, to the anatomy of a bullfrog, the Internet covers information on and about anything. For example, I was very interested in the sport Broomball when I played my first

game at Iowa State’s Hockey Rink. Not knowing much about the newly experienced sport, my interests grew to find out more about it. Using my computer, I typed in “Broomball” into Netscape. To my surprise, forty sites that contained the word “Broomball” popped up, and I was able to find out much more about the sport. One of the sights that I visited happened to be down in Australia, another up in Canada! From there, I now know that Broomball leagues can be found all over Canada, and that Broomball was first invented in 1981. Millions of college student’s lives have be effected because of the Internet. To college students, the Internet is a twenty-four hour library that can be accessed through various computer labs across campuses. To others, it is a way of