Editing Information Age (section)

===1989–2005: Invention of the World Wide Web, mainstreaming of the Internet, Web 1.0===
{{See also|Fifth generation of video game consoles|Sixth generation of video game consoles}} 

[[Tim Berners-Lee]] invented the [[World Wide Web]] in 1989.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-01-25 |title=A short history of the Web |url=https://www.home.cern/science/computing/birth-web/short-history-web |access-date=2024-02-16 |website=CERN |language=en}}</ref> The "Web 1.0 era" ended in 2005, coinciding with the development of further advanced technologies during the start of the 21st century.<ref>{{Cite web|title=World Wide Web and Its Journey from Web 1.0 to Web 4.0
|url=https://ijcsit.com/docs/Volume%205/vol5issue06/ijcsit20140506265.pdf |access-date=January 20, 2025|website=ijcsit|language=en}}</ref>

The first public digital [[HDTV]] broadcast was of the [[1990 World Cup]] that June; it was played in 10 theaters in Spain and Italy. However, HDTV did not become a standard until the mid-2000s outside Japan.

The [[World Wide Web]] became publicly accessible in 1991, which had been available only to government and universities.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://thenextweb.com/insider/2011/08/06/20-years-ago-today-the-world-wide-web-opened-to-the-public/|title=20 years ago today, the World Wide Web was born – TNW Insider|date=6 August 2011|author=Martin Bryant|work=The Next Web|access-date=17 April 2015}}</ref> In 1993 [[Marc Andreessen]] and [[Eric Bina]] introduced [[Mosaic (web browser)|Mosaic]], the first web browser capable of displaying inline images<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/transistor/background1/events/www.html|title=The World Wide Web|website=[[PBS]]|access-date=17 April 2015}}</ref> and the basis for later browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer. [[Stanford Federal Credit Union]] was the first [[financial institution]] to offer online internet banking services to all of its members in October 1994.<ref>{{cite press release|title=Stanford Federal Credit Union Pioneers Online Financial Services.|date=1995-06-21|url=http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Stanford+Federal+Credit+Union+Pioneers+Online+Financial+Services.-a017104850|access-date=21 December 2018|archive-date=21 December 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181221041632/https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Stanford+Federal+Credit+Union+Pioneers+Online+Financial+Services.-a017104850|url-status=dead}}</ref> In 1996 [[OP Financial Group]], also a [[cooperative bank]], became the second online bank in the world and the first in Europe.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.op.fi/op-financial-group/about-us/op-financial-group-in-brief/history | title=History – About us – OP Group}}</ref> The Internet expanded quickly, and by 1996, it was part of [[mass culture]] and many businesses listed websites in their ads.{{Citation needed|date=February 2024}} By 1999, almost every country had a connection, and nearly half of [[United States|Americans]] and people in several other countries used the Internet on a regular basis.{{Citation needed|date=February 2024}} However throughout the 1990s, "getting online" entailed complicated configuration, and [[dial-up]] was the only connection type affordable by individual users; the present day mass [[Internet culture]] was not possible.

In 1989, about 15% of all households in the United States owned a personal computer.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Cheeseman Day |first1=Jennifer |last2=Janus |first2=Alex |last3=Davis |first3=Jessica |title=Computer and Internet Use in the United States: 2003 |url=https://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/p23-208.pdf |website=Census Bureau |access-date=10 March 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090306033855/https://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/p23-208.pdf |archive-date=6 March 2009 |language=English |date=October 2005 |url-status=dead}}</ref>
For households with children, nearly 30% owned a computer in 1989, and in 2000, 65% owned one.

[[Cell phones]] became as ubiquitous as computers by the early 2000s, with movie theaters beginning to show ads telling people to silence their phones. They also became [[smartphones|much more advanced]] than phones of the 1990s, most of which only took calls or at most allowed for the playing of simple games.

Text messaging became widely used in the late 1990s worldwide, except for in the United States of America where text messaging didn't become commonplace till the early 2000s.{{Citation needed|date=February 2024}}

The digital revolution became truly global in this time as well – after revolutionizing society in the [[developed world]] in the 1990s, the digital revolution spread to the masses in the [[developing world]] in the 2000s.

By 2000, a majority of U.S. households had at least one personal computer and [[internet access]] the following year.<ref>{{cite report|last=File|first=Thom|date=May 2013|title=Computer and Internet Use in the United States|series=Current Population Survey Reports|publisher=[[United States Census Bureau|U.S. Census Bureau]]|place=Washington, D.C.|url=https://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p20-569.pdf|access-date=11 February 2020}}</ref> In 2002, a majority of U.S. survey respondents reported having a mobile phone.<ref>{{cite report|last1=Tuckel|first1=Peter|last2=O'Neill|first2=Harry|title=Ownership and Usage Patterns of Cell Phones: 2000–2005|year=2005|series=JSM Proceedings, Survey Research Methods Section|place=[[Alexandria, Virginia|Alexandria, VA]]|publisher=[[American Statistical Association]]|page=4002|url=http://www.asasrms.org/Proceedings/y2005/files/JSM2005-000345.pdf|access-date=25 September 2020}}</ref>