The Day the World Went Online

The Day the World Went Online

I grew up in a town so small, you could walk from one end to the other without passing a single stranger. The streets were quiet, the nights quieter. We knew our neighbors, their dogs, their dramas, and what time they boiled their evening tea. The world outside felt like a distant planet — something we read about in newspapers or watched delayed on national TV.

That was before the internet came.

It started with a rumor. A group of government workers arrived in town, surveying land and laying strange cables beneath the dirt roads. Some thought it was electricity upgrades, others guessed it was something military. My grandfather, always suspicious, said it was probably another reason to raise taxes.

Then, one morning, a notice went up on the community board outside the post office:

“Public Internet Access Now Live at Town Hall – Free for All Residents.”

No one knew what it meant. Internet? Was it like a new kind of radio?

Curiosity pulled me there. I was 14, barely old enough to understand our black-and-white television, let alone this “web.” The room was quiet when I arrived — just a dusty PC, a screen glowing pale green, and a man in uniform guiding townsfolk through what looked like magic.

He called it a browser. He typed something into a bar at the top: “How to bake apple pie.” And suddenly, dozens of results filled the screen—photos, recipes, videos.

I stared, mouth half-open.

That same day, I searched:

“Why is the sky blue?”

“How far is the moon?”

“Do dinosaurs still exist somewhere?”

Each question answered in seconds. Not by books, not by teachers, but by an endless sea of knowledge that didn’t sleep. It was as if the world had opened up and poured into our little town through that glowing screen.

I ran home to tell my mom.

That evening, families poured into the Town Hall like it was a festival. Some searched for lost relatives, others listened to music they hadn’t heard in decades. My friend Asif printed a photo of the Eiffel Tower and pinned it to his wall like he’d been there.

Within weeks, internet lines were extended to the school, library, and even the bakery — whose owner started offering “online orders,” even though most people still paid in cash.

We weren’t just learning facts. We were connecting. To people across the globe, to stories beyond our borders, and to possibilities we never imagined.

But it wasn’t all wonder.

My uncle lost his job because the company he worked for moved their operations “online.” A neighbor’s son got caught up in online scams, believing he’d won money from a prince. And our teacher, Mr. Malik, struggled to adjust to students who could now question everything with a few clicks.

Change was fast. Too fast for some.

One night, I sat with my grandfather on the porch. He lit a cigarette, stared at the stars, and said,

“We used to look up to find answers. Now you all look down… at those screens.”

I smiled.

“We still look up, Nana. But now we know what we’re looking at.”

He didn’t reply, but I saw the corner of his mouth twitch upward.

Years passed. Dial-up turned into broadband. PCs turned into phones. Our quiet town now had a co-working space, a tech hub, and even a local influencer with 40,000 followers. People still greeted each other in the streets—but now they also commented and liked each other’s photos.

Yet I’ll never forget that first day.

The day the world went online wasn’t just about technology. It was about access—to knowledge, to stories, to each other. It was the day we stopped being alone in our little corners of the world.

And it all started with a glowing green screen…

and a recipe for apple pie.