In 1996, the Internet (or rather the World Wide Web) that we know today and that we all use had only existed for 6 years. Few French people had access to this revolutionary network: in 1996, only 2.5% of them connected to the Internet… so most of them had only a vague idea of what it could be.
The connections back then were pretty sluggish, but we had the pleasure of listening to the "sweet music" of 56k modems trying to connect via the home phone line. There were few websites and loading times were long! One thing is for sure, you had to be patient!
To our great delight, theINA (National Audiovisual Institute) has just taken out of its drawers a nice man-in-the-street interview where journalists ask random people in the street what the Internet is !
But the French, already well warmed up by the Minitel, are not so bad in their answers. Some know absolutely nothing about it and don't give a damn, but others offer answers that are not so absurd, as you will see in the video below...
The fact remains that more than 20 years later, many of us still have trouble defining what the Internet really is... but one thing is certain, while in 1996 it was an innovation far removed from the concerns of the general public, today, we can no longer do without it!
