The ARPANET was not intended as a message system. In the minds of its inventors, the network was intended for resource-sharing, period. That very little of its capacity was actually ever used for resource-sharing was a fact soon submersed in the tide of electronic mail. Between 1972 and the early 1980s, e-mail, or network mail as it was referred to, was discovered by thousands of early users. The decade gave rise to many of the enduring features of modern digital culture: Flames, emoticons, the @ sign, debates on free speech and privacy, and a sleepless search for technical improvements and
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