For the past three decades, the internet and the web have been an empowering force for forging connections, learning, earning, and building global networks. Let’s take a moment to appreciate the power of connectivity. Here’s what some famous faces have to say about it.
1. The web’s Big Bang: Amy Farrah Fowler-Cooper (real-life neuroscientist) can’t even believe it.
“I’m one of those people that thinks the internet is amazing, and I can’t believe it exists.”
– Mayim Bialik
2. Joseph Gordon-Levitt praises the conversations and debates that the web has fostered.
“Media used to be one way. Everyone else in the world just had to listen. Now the internet is allowing what used to be a monologue to become a dialogue. I think that’s healthy.”
– Joseph Gordon-Levitt
3. Stephen Hawking got deep about how the internet connects us all.
“We are all now connected by the internet, like neurons in a giant brain.”
– Stephen Hawking
4. Entrepreneur Michelle Phan praises the internet for how it’s contributed to her business success.
“The beauty of the internet is there’s a niche market for everything, and if you can focus on it, you can build a sustainable and viable business of it.”
– Michelle Phan
5. Reddit’s co-founder Alexis Ohanian on the revolutionary power of the web.
“To join in the industrial revolution, you needed to open a factory; in the internet revolution, you need to open a laptop.”
– Alexis Ohanian
6. Yoko Ono on the cultural and generational changes that the web has brought.
“People say that this new generation is so used to the internet that their heads are already different. They can’t read a book from beginning to end. That is not a tragedy. The book changes form.”
– Yoko Ono
7. Forest Whitaker on how the internet has become part of human evolution.
“The internet is part of our evolution. The mystics used to say ‘We can travel across the planet in a thought.’ Now we really can. We can be connected with a million people at a time.”
– Forest Whitaker
8. Rebecca MacKinnon, Director of the Ranking Digital Rights, on how the internet can be a force for disrupting power.
“The internet is an empowering force for people who are protesting against the abuse of power.”
– Rebecca MacKinnon
9. And the inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has a call to action for all us who are connected.
“If we spend a certain amount of time on the internet, we have to spend a little proportion of that time defending it.”
– Sir Tim Berners-Lee
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