How the Internet Happened: From Netscape to the iPhone

by Brian McCullough

First, we connected all the world’s computers together. Then, we uploaded all of humanity’s collected knowledge into the virtual space that networks created. Then, we made all of that knowledge searchable. We tied our commerce systems, our financial systems, even our media and information systems, to the network. We created a world where any good, any piece of media, any piece of art, any fact or thought, any idea or meme, is available, on call, for the instant gratification of any curiosity or desire. Over the course of a decade, we learned how to behave, and then to actually live with this new networked paradigm—to actually exist in this virtual environment. With social media, we connected ourselves together just as comprehensively as we had connected all the computers. And then, we started wearing actual supercomputers on our bodies, taking them with us at every waking moment of our days, to navigate, not only the intellectual, the social, but even the physical space of modern life. And we did all this unbidden, undirected, unplanned—almost as if we were following a biological impulse, guided by some unconscious evolutionary imperative.