"Ten years ago, when someone mentioned the word Internet, the likely response would have been: "Inter-what?"

In a decade, Internet use has exploded. On a typical day, 82 million American adults, 40 percent of the entire population, go online to read e-mail, use a search engine, catch the news or check the weather report.

Lee Rainie, director of Pew Internet & American Life Project, put it this way: "It took radio 38 years to attract an audience of 50 million. It took television 13 years. It took the Web less than four years when the Netscape browser became widely available in October 1994."

Rainie says the falling cost of computers and online connections during the 1990s and early 2000s helped fuel the boom.

But he says, more important, the Net opened new means of communication with e-mail and instant messaging; made available troves of information on health, hobbies, investments and news; pioneered a new type of e-shopping at sites such as Amazon.com and eBay, and created "an increasingly fun place to hang out" to browse and play games."


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