From early email to smart devices, watch connection reshape modern life.

Explore how social networking grew from early electronic mail and mailing lists into social media, online communities, and connected devices. This series examines how networks changed communication, news, trust, and everyday life, while raising bigger questions about where the internet goes next. Sign up to see the ideas behind the platforms that now shape how we relate and share information.

Episode guide

5 episodes

1Did You Foresee the Growth of Social Networks?

Vint Cerf, one of the "fathers of the Internet," reacts to the rise of social networking.

1 min

2Did AOL Invent Social Media?

Ted Leonsis, entrepreneur and former senior executive at AOL, discusses the early start of social networking through AOL's instant messaging.

2 min

3Grooming Our Network

How did social networking surpass traditional media to set the news agenda of the day? Lee Rainie, Director of Internet Science and Technology Research at the Pew Research Center, finds answers in the way chimps and humans build communities.

3 min

4The Rise & Fall Of The Web

Lee Rainie, Director of Internet Science and Technology Research at the Pew Research Center, marvels at how the web has inspired so many people to tell their stories -- and how that newfound freedom is jeopardized by government censorship.

3 min

5The Internet Of Things

Lee Rainie, Director of Internet Science and Technology Research at the Pew Research Center, envisions the world of the near future, where omnipresent sensors and vast networks of machine to machine communication influence every aspect of our lives.

3 min

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