roomthily:

Daniel Hillis’ response to ‘How has the internet changed the way you think?’

It seems that most people, even intelligent and well-informed people, are confused about the difference between the Internet and the Web… . The Web is a wonderful resource for speeding up the retrieval and dissemination of information and that, despite Wolfe’s trivialization, is no small change. Yet, the Internet is much more than just the Web… . By the Internet, I mean the global network of interconnected computers that enables, among other things, the Web. I would like to focus on applications that go beyond human-to-human communication. In the long run, these are applications of the Internet that will have the greatest impact on who we are and how we think.

Today, most people only recognize that they are using the Internet when they are interacting with a computer screen. They are less likely to appreciate when they are using the Internet while talking on the telephone, watching television, or flying on an airplane. Some travelers may have recently gotten a glimpse of the truth, for example, upon learning that their flights were grounded due to an Internet router failure in Salt Lake City, but for most this was just another inscrutable annoyance. Most people have long ago given up on trying to understand how technical systems work. This is a part of how the Internet is changing the way we think.

via mammoth