The New Childrens Encyclopedia

GLOBAL VILLAGE

263

ELECTRONIC MAIL

Electronic mail (email) is a way of sending written messages

between computers. Invented in 1971, it has now become

one of the world’s favorite forms of communication—

especially for work. No one really knows,

but it’s thought that somewhere

between 100 and 500 billion emails

are sent worldwide each day.

CELL PHONES

Ordinary phones are fixed in place because they

have to be connected with wires. Cell phones

can go anywhere because they send signals with

radio waves. There are more than three billion

cell phones in the world. They’ve proved to be a

big hit in developing countries, where traditional

telephone networks cost too much to build.

NEWS

When letters were the fastest way to

communicate, it could take months for news

to go around the world. Now, with satellite

and Internet technology, you can watch events

happening live. Using a website, you can even set

up your own personal newspaper, called a blog.

BRINGING PEOPLE TOGETHER

The Internet has created new ways for people

to connect. Social networking websites, where

people make friends and share interests, are

very popular. A website called Facebook has

over 150 million members worldwide. If it

were a country, it would be one of the ten

biggest nations on Earth.

TECHNOLOGY

The World Wide Web is like a

huge library you can use over the

Internet. It has around 200 million

separate websites containing well over

20 billion text pages, photographs,

and music and sound files.

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