Today, we send emails, text messages, and status updates instantaneously. But not so long ago, messages were handwritten and travelled no faster than we could carry them. With the invention of the telegraph and then the telephone, instant communication was born. Radio and television created an industry for mass entertainment that continues to grow, and the computer age changed how we crunch data. With the invention of the internet in the 1980s, we have truly shrunk the world into the palms of our hands.

Originally released by New Dimension Media, 2013. Streaming video file encoded with permission for digital streaming by Infobase on April 16, 2021.