You’ve probably heard of a lot about the Internet, but what is it? 
The Internet is a computer network that uses the telephone system to connect together millions of computers around the world． Maybe that isn’t very exciting but once you’re connected to the Internet, there are lots and lots of different things you can do．You can send electronic messages or “e-mails”to your friends(as long as they’re on the Internet, too), or you can sort through all kinds of information on something called the World Wide Web(www世界信息网)．You don’t need to know how the Internet works in order to use it, but if you understand the basics, it may help you work out any technical problems you have－and of course you can help your friends with your Net knowledge!You may think that your telephone is just for talking．But as long as you have the equipment, you can use a telephone line to send computer data(数据)as well as sounds．If you connect your computer with the telephone system it can receive information from, and send information to other computers(as long as they are connected with the telephone system, too)． Because there is not an organization which operates the Internet, no one exactly knows how many people are connected to it．It’s thought that there could be 60 million people on the Net, connected up to over 15 million computers! | 
