What Will We Study When the Internet Disappears?

With greater breadth and depth of penetration comes greater impact, which implies that the ultimate impact of the internet will be determined less by its exotic uses, and more by its most common, even mundane uses.

Abstract

The Internet is not really disappearing in any literal sense, of course, but it is becoming less visible as its applications become more transparent and ubiquitous. That’s partly the result of widespread use and partly the result of its incorporation into our daily activities. Between 60-70% of the population of North America and Western Europe is now on line and, though substantial gaps remain, use in all other regions of the world grew at triple digit rates over the past 7 years (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm). Many Internet-based applications are so commonplace and so integrated into our daily activities that they are easily taken for granted. As others have suggested (Turow & Kavanaugh, 2003), we should probably stop capitalizing the word “internet” in acknowledgement of this fact. With greater breadth and depth of penetration comes greater impact. This is true both for the internet in general and for particular applications or uses. This is turn implies that the ultimate impact of the internet will be determined less by its exotic uses, and more by its most common, even mundane uses.