JURASSIC WEB

Social media has become such a big part of our lives it sometimes feels like it’s always been there. But where exactly did the idea first come from? It’s a fascinating story that is little known to most of us online today. It starts decades before the internet even existed, when a few curious geeks started using new technologies to socialise and create communities: from underground phone pirates in the ‘60s and ‘70s who started hacking into phone networks to leave each other messages; to the pre-internet “Bulletin Board Systems”; on to the period in the ‘80s where France’s Minitel led the world in expanding access to this technology.