Internet
A Third Age Relationships Feature
by our Relationships Editor

With people in their Third Age and the over 50s becoming the fastest growing segment of Internet users, it seems an appropriate time to explain what the Internet is and what it can do for you.

The Internet is a global network of computers. Every individual computer – including the one you are sitting in front of right now - forms part of that global network. Your computer is connected to a local network of other computers via your internet service provider. That local network is connected to other local and global networks via a system of cables (copper and fibre-optic), wireless connections and other technologies. It enables us to communicate with you, and you to communicate with every other computer user in the world via a series of Web Pages such as you are viewing now, via Social Networking sites, by Blogging and via Email (short for Electronic Mail).

That in brief then is the Internet explained. Of course there’s a lot more to it than that, but that is all most of us really need to know except perhaps how to connect to it, which invariably these days is via Broadband.

So what can the Internet do for you? Well, quite a lot really. Actually, an awful lot. As already mentioned, it allows us to communicate with you and you with us if you choose to. It also allows you to communicate with your friends via Email and to keep in closer touch with them via the use of  Video Conferencing and WebCams.

It allows you to read the news, to check the weather, to find a route or to check the potential traffic problems on any given road in the country. It allows you to book a flight, to compare the cost of car insurance, to send flowers or to operate a bank account. It gives you access to virtually every piece of information ever written, and the opportunity to embrace cultures on the other side of the world. It allows you to shop, to study, to play games, to watch films and to listen to music. It gives you the opportunity to swap photographs, to research your Family Tree and to put your point of view. And all that from the comfort of your home office or living room. In fact when you think about it, the Internet is one of the most astonishing tools even known to man!

If you would like to learn more about the Internet and what it can do for you, we are happy to recommend The Internet for the Older and Wiser: Get Up and Running Safely on the Web by Adrian Arnold. Produced by the University of the Third Age (U3A), a self-help organization for older people no longer in full-time employment, it is a book written specifically for those of us in our Third Age.

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