Technology
After 25 Years, 87 Percent of Americans Connected to the Web
[PC Mag]
Get your party pants on, people — the World Wide Web is turning 25 on March 12.
In honor of the Web’s impending quarter-life crisis, the Pew Research Center on Thursday released a survey showing just how far it has come over the years. Two and a half decades after Sir Tim Berners-Lee released the first popular Web browser Mosaic, an overwhelming 87 percent of American adults now use the Internet — and most say it has positively impacted their life and society overall.
The survey of 1,006 adults, conducted last month, revealed that 90 percent think the Internet has been a good thing for them personally and 75 percent think it has improved society. Fifty-three percent said the Internet would be, at a minimum, “very hard” to give up while four in 10 said it’s absolutely necessary to their lives.