15 September 1994: Netiquette or how to negotiate your way through the 3000 or more Usenet newsgroups available. “Can anyone tell me where I can get information about baroque music?”
10 September 1998: So you want to communicate on the Net... Jack Schofield offers his advice on how to join the chattering classes. Internet Relay Chat and mailing lists are the next big beasts online.
21 October 1999: Newsgroups: Paul Trueman goes online to chat to likeminded souls about his passions. It seems the Alt. subject matter is more interesting than any other.
24 November 2005: Facebook was founded in February 2004 to help college students around the world make a connection but already it is a roaring success. After three weeks 6000 students had joined. By 2005 it counts 30 UK universities as members, from St Andrews in Scotland to the London School of Economics, with 70,000 users, including alumni.
19 December 2007: Research by Pew says that girls are the big social media users.
24 February 2009: Facebook and Bebo risk ‘infantilising’ the human mind, warns a leading neuroscientist, saying that social networking sites are changing children’s brains, resulting in selfish and attention deficient young people.
9 May 2013: Snapchat is the new favourite with teenagers as they can swap photos which are permanently deleted after ten seconds. Engineers found out this is not exactly the case.
3 July 2016: How over one billion users have made WhatsApp our favourite way to chat.
8 October 2016: Instagram is often considered the natural home for selfies. Is taking a photo of oneself empowering, demeaning, narcissistic or artistic? A new study says it’s not about vanity, it’s about everyday life.
The Rich Kids of Instagram somehow give a different impression.
15 December 2016: Facebook announces it will begin flagging fake news stories with the help of users and outside fact checkers, responding to a torrent of criticism over fake news during the US election.
