November 23, 1996, at about 6PM, I took my first steps onto the information super highway. I made a note of this occasion in my diary because I could recognize that it would be a watershed moment in my life.

I am at an age where I can cleanly separate life pre and post internet. I have lived just about exactly half my life at this time in both eras. The technology grew during my college and university days and I saw the world change overnight. In April of 1998, I was still doing homework on a typewriter; six months later I wasn’t allowed to use a dot matrix printer for churning out essays; and two years later I was getting bonus credit for submitting my papers as web pages.

Ultimately, I am grateful for the internet, even if I am much too dependent on it. I have always had a thirst for knowledge that libraries and bookstores couldn’t slake and now I have all the knowledge I could want at my fingertips. I have also made some truly remarkable, life-long, friendships through the web. I sometimes spend too much time mindlessly surfing and not enough time reading books, but when all is added up, the internet has been a Good Thing in my life.