The Internet is the most powerful information & communication utility ever. No other inventions have created more jobs, embraced the world's history and cultures and brought nearly everyone from every corner of the world within arm's reach.

Do you remember what life was like before the early 1990s? Conversation, letters and photo sharing with far-away relatives were reserved for special occasions due to postage and long distance charges. Day to day shopping from any distance farther than local outlets was unheard of for most common folk. Challenging your brother's word in Scrabble involved dusting off the old Webster's. Writing your thesis or working on an important school project? You would need to make a visit to your local library to find any worthwhile research material.

If someone told you in 1992 that within in a decade you would be able to send photos and letters instantly to friends and family, import a product from China by pointing a clicking, and look up a word's definition out of tens of thousands within seconds just by spelling it out... would you have believed them? What if they told you that you would be able to read all of the latest headlines from most major newspapers and magazines around the world to get the unbiased truths? What if massive man-made knowledge bases like Wikipedia, Answers.com, and Helium were at your fingertips 24 hours a day 7 days a week? What if you could have a list of hundreds, thousands, even millions of search results created for you based whatever you wanted in less than a second?

We have come a long way from the "What if", and with a constantly evolving technology like the Internet, we most definitely still have a long way to go. Our societies have historically grown dependent on the technologies we embrace, and the World Wide Web is no exception. The consequences of going to bed tonight and the Internet being gone when we wake up would be catastrophic.

Millions of people rely on the Internet for their careers, and there are new jobs created every year. Your job description in 5 years might not exist today. Your great idea could even be the catalyst in the next big Internet trend, with just a PC in your basement and a little elbow grease.

Our ancestors would never have dreamed of the knowledge, power and privileges that everyone in modern countries across the world have access to. We are living in the best of times, the Internet changed the world.

Learn more about this author, Matt Durrant.
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