I’m one day late with my birthday wishes, but 40 years ago yesterday (on September 2, 1969), computer scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles, ran a 15-foot cable between two computers so that they could exchange data. The linking up of those two machines marked a milestone in the creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network, or ARPANET, which later gave rise to the Internet.
It wasn’t until October 29 of 1969, however, that the first message was sent between computers, so some say the Internet was really born at the end of October, which would make it a Scorpio: “exciting and magnetic” but also “compulsive and obsessive.”
So the Internet is hitting the big 4-0, give or take a few weeks. What does it want to be when it grows up? Like many of us at mid-life, it professes to want more, or less, or at least something different. Like the rest of us, it wants to travel more. And like those of us who live abroad or want to, it’s not sure it ever wants to come back.
If the Internet had steamer trunks they’d be covered with stickers from just about everywhere. It’s been on every major continent, and its presence is becoming more and more more ubiquitous.
In the last 9 years, the number of Internet users around the world has jumped from 360,985,492 to 1,668,870,408. Most Internet users (about 704 million) are in Asia, because Asia is the most populous area measured, though only about 18% of people in Asia are on the web. Europe comes in 2nd, with 402 million (and 50% of people there on the Web), and North America is third with about 252 million.
But in terms of penetration (if there was another word for it, rest assured that I’d be using it), North America is at the top of the pile, with almost 75% of the population on the web (the world average is about 25%).
Like travelers who’ve stuck with the more conventional destinations, the Internet has seen a lot of Europe, Australia, and North America. Now it wants to broaden its horizons, see the rest of the world. Maybe life would have more meaning if it could travel the old Silk Road in China? Or run with the Bedouins and their camels? When it accrues some more vacation time, the Internet will be heading for the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
And since travel changes the traveler at least as much as the places visited, the new Internet will come back looking and thinking differently. For those ready to listen to its tales, we’ll all be changed as well.
Statistics from Internet World Stats.
Image: Shutterstock
