On August 1, 1990, Tim Berners-Lee, a computer scientist at CERN created the term “world wide web” to describe an interconnected universe of information. The first graphics-based web browser, Mosaic, was developed only a few years later by computer scientist Marc Andreesen, then working for the University of Illinois. While other text-based browsers already existed, like Gopher and Lynx, it was Mosaic that pointed the way toward what most people think of as the Internet today.
Considering the ubiquity of online information, commerce and entertainment, it is worth examining tools and tricks that make the Internet safer, easier and more useful. For instance, special operators are an easy way to make any search engine work better. A tilde (the ~ symbol) retrieves search results that are similar or related to a search query. For instance, a search for ~climate change might also turn up results for global warming. An asterisk (the * symbol) placed after part of a word will return different variations of that word. A search for music* will provide results for music, musicians, musicology and musicals. Other special operators include site: (searching on a specific site) and define (gives a definition of a word.)
A savvy web user will also want to know about Boolean operators. These are basic logic statements that include or exclude information. There are three of them and they can be defined as follows:
- AND: Combines two search terms together. Ice AND Cream would retrieve results for ice, cream AND ice cream.
- OR: Looks for results with one or the other terms, but not necessarily both together. Chocolate OR strawberry would include results for both terms, but the results might not include the two words together in the same document.
- NOT: Looks for one term and not another – this is good for searches that may include common words, like Red Wing NOT sports, which would include results for Red Wing, Minnesota and exclude results for the Detroit Red Wings hockey team.
A good Internet user will also want to practice basic safety while using the Internet. While it is convenient to use the same password for many different accounts, this is a security weakness that can result in stolen accounts and identity theft. Unique, strong passwords remain one of the most important tools of any good web user.
Another important thing to keep in mind is news literacy. Internet users should be aware of the different ways to determine if news is real or fake. Michael Caulfield of the University of Washington developed the four-step SIFT method, which remains an excellent tool for examining news content for accuracy. Another tool is Media Bias/Fact Check, a rating site with profiles of news outlets to determine if they are mostly truthful or mostly false. This tool is part of the backbone of The Iffy Quotient, a weekly aggregator of fake news data. Last, consider fact checking websites such as Politifact and FactCheck.org, which examine news articles for accuracy and provide evidence for their ratings.
Happy birthday, World Wide Web! It is hard to imagine modern life without the convenience of the Internet. Interested in learning more about the history of the Web? Want to discover more ways to stay safe online? Curious about how to make web browsers work even better? Ask us! iueref@iue.edu or click this button:
