History of National Internet Day
National Internet Day timeline
AOL introduces a monthly flat rate for access to internet chat rooms instead of charging by the hour. For $19.95 a month, users could now stay for as long as they wanted. AOL’s subscriber base would grow to 17 million by 1999.
Apple designs a landmark (and colorful) desktop computer that users could set up with a simple two-step process. Apple’s catchphrase in a popular commercial? “There’s no step 3.” Another ad showed a 7-year-old setting up an iMac in a little over eight minutes.
Mark Zuckerberg launches Facebook as a Harvard-only social network. By 2011, Facebook’s estimated worth stands at $50 billion. The dawn of “fake news” on Facebook would influence the 2016 presidential election.
Amazon emerges as America’s second-largest private employer. (Only Walmart has more workers.) Jeff Bezos’ company has connections to more than a third of all retail products bought or sold online in the U.S. Amazon also owns Whole Foods and helps arrange the shipment of items purchased across the Web.
National Internet Day FAQs
Why is Safer Internet Day celebrated?
Each year on February 11, Safer Internet Day aims to raise awareness of emerging online issues and chooses a topic reflecting current concerns. Safer Internet Day is originally a European holiday. However people outside Europe do celebrate it.
Is the internet safe for children?
That depends on a lot of factors, but by and large, when used responsibly and with adult supervision, the internet can be a terrific resource for children — and adults too, for that matter.
What are some of the dangers of the internet?
Some of the dangers include cyberbullying, screen addiction, damage to the eyes from blue light, loss of sleep, and exposure to questionable or objectionable material.
National Internet Day Activities
Mix up your passwords
It might seem like a boring way to celebrate, but the next time a giant bank gets hacked, you'll be able to rest just a tad easier. Hopefully.
Make your own memes
Whether you're a photoshop wiz, or a computer klutz, making a meme is easy. Find a funny picture that you'd like to annotate (or start with a classic meme image), and get creative
Unplug! Just for a day.
You wouldn't dare refrain from pizza on National Pizza Day, so why unplug from the web on National Internet Day? Well, because we can! Most of us use the internet everyday, and it can be easy to forget how much we depend on it. By taking a day off, we can appreciate the offline world as well.
Why We Love National Internet Day
It connects us like never before
Many technologies promised to connect the world — the mail service, telegraph, and the telephone, to name a few — but none of them succeeded with such scale and speed as the web. A message that once could have taken weeks to receive can now be transmitted across the world (and the solar system!) in mere moments.
It's a global equalizer
Thirty years ago, only the world's wealthiest individuals and institutions had access to a library of information comparable with what's online today. While it's still not an entirely free process, the price of information access has fallen dramatically with the rise of the internet, putting infinite information into the pockets of billions across the globe.
Cats, cats, and more cats.
For a tool that so many people use so differently, there's one part of the internet that seems constant: cats. From long cat to Grumpy cat, our feline friends have become quick celebrities on the internet, and as history tells us, we're always looking for a new hero. The internet delivers every day!
National Internet Day dates
Year | Date | Day |
---|---|---|
2025 | October 29 | Wednesday |
2026 | October 29 | Thursday |
2027 | October 29 | Friday |
2028 | October 29 | Sunday |
2029 | October 29 | Monday |