๐Ÿ’ป Computers

The internet: a network that connects the world

A globe connected to computers and phones on every side

๐Ÿ“– In short

The internet is a huge network linking billions of computers and phones all over the world. Thanks to it we can watch a video filmed in a faraway country, talk to Grandma with sound and picture, and find any information in seconds. But like a big street, it needs rules so we can get around safely.

๐Ÿคฉ Did you know?

  • The first page on the World Wide Web was published in 1991.
  • More than five billion people use the internet today.
  • Undersea cables carry most of the communication between continents, and some are longer than the distance around the Earth!
  • An internet message can travel all the way around the Earth in less than a second.

๐Ÿ”Ž Find out more

๐ŸŒŸ How does information travel?

When you send a photo, the computer cuts it into tiny pieces called โ€œpacketsโ€. Each packet travels on its own through wires and the air, perhaps by a different route, then they come back together at your friend's end to make the whole photo again.

๐Ÿ” Cables under the sea

You might think the internet only travels by satellite, but most information between continents goes through very long cables laid on the ocean floor, carrying light inside thin glass threads.

๐Ÿ’ก Websites and links

A website is a set of pages with its own address, like a house's address. A link is a word we click to go to another page. So pages are woven together like the threads of a spider's web, which is where the name โ€œWorld Wide Webโ€ comes from.

๐ŸŽฏ Safety rules

Online, we don't give our full name, address or photos to people we don't know, we don't click strange links, and we tell a grown-up we trust if we see something that upsets or scares us.

๐Ÿงญ Who owns the internet?

No single person or country owns the internet. It's thousands of networks owned by companies, universities and governments that have agreed on shared โ€œrulesโ€ for talking to each other, just as we agree on the rules of a game.

๐ŸŒˆ The internet and the web

The internet is the roads and wires that connect devices, while the โ€œwebโ€ is the pages of the websites we browse. Email, games and calls also use the internet without being web pages.

๐Ÿ“Š See how it works

The message is split into numbered packets that take different routes and then come together again
The message is split into numbered packets; each takes its own route, then they come back together in order at the receiver.

๐Ÿ“š Key words

Packet
A small piece of a message that travels on its own
Protocol
Rules computers agree on so they can understand each other
The web
The website pages we visit with a browser

๐Ÿงช Try it at home

The packets game: write a sentence on cards, one word per card with its number. Shuffle the cards and give them to friends who walk different ways across the room to the โ€œreceiverโ€, who puts them in number order to read the sentence.

๐Ÿงฉ Test yourself

1 What do we call the small pieces information is split into?

2 A strange message says: โ€œYou won a prize, click here.โ€ What do we do?

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๐ŸŽฎ Try it yourself