Quote

The major advances in speed of communication and ability to interact took place more than a century ago. The shift from sailing ships to telegraph was far more radical than that from telephone to email!

Around '93, '94, the conventional wisdom about the Internet was that it was a toy for academics and researchers. So it was very, very underestimated for about two years.

It's extraordinary that revolutions taking place around the world were sparked by communication on the Internet.

People always think they're in the middle of a revolution while they tend not to realize the enormity of a change that has happened in the past. The telegraph was a revolution, but who looks at it that way these days? The telegraph sped up the transportation of messages over long distances by a huge factor.

In a single generation, the Internet has given to virtually every person on the face of the earth the ability to communicate with fellow human beings on virtually any topic, at any time, and in every nook and cranny on the globe. This magnificent invention has done this without succumbing to government control.

For a brief time in the 1850s, the telegraph companies of England and the United States thought that they could (and should) preserve every message that passed through their wires. Millions of telegrams - in fireproof safes. Imagine the possibilities for history!

'The Victorian Internet' is a must read for anyone interested in the history of technology and in the cycles of hype, boom, and bust that seem to only quicken with each new wave of innovation. Highly recommended.

I would absolutely love to go back to the simplicity of the '80s, where there wasn't texting, social media, iPhones, or smartphones. I love the fact that you would go home and check your messages. I'm not well suited to the world of modern technology.

What was really interesting to me about 'The Telegarden' was this idea of connecting the physical world, the natural world, and the social world through the Internet.

TV ushered in the age of postliteracy. And we have gone so far beyond that. I mean, what with the Internet and Google and Wikipedia. We have entered the age of post-intelligence.