The Impact of the World Wide Web On Society

How Web Technology Has Changed Our Lives

What Is It?

The World Wide Web, in a very basic definition:

• "The World Wide Web ("WWW", or simply "Web") is an information space in which the items of interest, referred to as resources, are identified by global identifiers called Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI). It is often confused as being analagous to the entire Internet, whereas in fact it is a major subset of it.
• The purpose of the WWW is to allow users to view or make use of more than just text" (Wikipedia.)

The Web Community

The Web, officially launched as an offshoot of the Internet in 1989, has not been around that long. However, it’s become a huge part of many people’s lives; enabling them to communicate, work, and play in a global context.

The Web is all about relationships and has made these relationships possible between individuals, groups, and communities where they wouldn’t have been otherwise.

The Web is a community without borders, limits, or even rules; and has become a true world of its own.

The Original Intention of the Web

The Web is a giant experiment, a global theory, that has amazingly enough worked pretty well. Its history illustrates the ways that technological advancement and innovation can move along unintended paths.

Originally, the Web and the Internet were created to be part of a military strategy, and not meant for private use. However, as in many experiments, theories, and plans, this didn’t actually happen.

Human Fingerprints on the Web

The Web is a structure created by humans, and we find out about the world by surfing sites, checking email, instant-messaging and bulletin boards.

The guidelines of the Web are fluid. We never know what we’re going to find. The Web, created by humans with human biases and human failings, is a technologically neutral tool, but each pixel on this network is infused with as much human bias and personality as humanly possible.

The Web = Communication

More than any technical definition, the Web is a way that people communicate.

The Internet, which is what the Web is laid down upon, started in the 1950’s as an experiment by the Department of Defense. They wanted to come up with something that would enable secure communications between various military units. However, once this technology was out, there was no stopping it. Universities such as Harvard and Berkeley caught wind of this revolutionary technology and made important modifications to it, such as addressing the individual computers from which communications originated (otherwise known as IP addressing).

Snail Mail versus Email

More than anything else, the Internet made people realize that communicating just by phone or mail was going to be a dinosaur. The possibilities of world-wide communication were mind-boggling to people then.

Nowadays, we think nothing of emailing (and getting an answer back within minutes), or seeing the latest streaming video full of up to the minute news. The Internet and the Web have revolutionized the way we communicate; not only with individuals, but with the world as well.

How Has The Web Become So Popular

Could you imagine your life without using the Web - no email, no access to breaking news, no up to the minute weather reports, no way to shop online, etc.? Probably you can't.

We have grown to be dependent on this technology - it has transformed the way that we conduct out lives. Try to go one day without using the Web in some fashion-you'll probably be surprised at how much you depend on it.

The ‘Always Growing, Always Evolving’ Web

The Web can’t actually be tracked down, you can’t point at it and say “there it is!”

The Web is a continual, ongoing process. It never has stopped replicating itself or progressing since the day it began, and it probably will keep evolving as long as people are around to keep developing it.

It’s made up of personal relationships, business partnerships and global associations. If the Web didn’t have these interpersonal relationships, it wouldn’t exist.