The document discusses the history and operation of the internet. It describes how the internet began as a network connecting universities and colleges, called ARPANET, and grew widespread in the 1990s with the rise of email. The internet is a global network of computers connected by telephone lines that allows users to send and receive email and browse the web by accessing information stored on linked websites. Information is transmitted online in the form of binary digits and devices like modems convert computer data to electrical signals to send it over telephone lines.