But what is different is the speed of technological progress since the mid-1990s, from the Internet and e-mail to cell phones and instant messaging.
Just over 20% of non-users say they know enough about technology to start going online if they wanted to, and only 10% said they're interested in using the internet or e-mail in the future.
From the early days of the Internet, e-mail has always been the starting point from which all meaningful audience interaction begins.
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Furthermore, 18 percent of African-Americans, 16 percent of English-speaking Hispanics and 10 percent of whites are "cell-only wireless users" -- which means their sole access to the internet, e-mail or instant messaging is via their phones.
Forrester Research, a consultancy, reckons that, by 2003, live collaboration, now used only in one-off projects between companies, will have become as much part of the Internet as e-mail is now.
"Clients get high quality resumes because those applying can use computers, the Internet and e-mail, " Chiu says.
About 87 percent of smartphone owners use it to access the Internet or e-mail, and 68 percent do so on a typical day.
Sometimes that involves using the internet for e-mail messages containing jokes, film clips and games, which recipients are encouraged to pass along to friends.
According to new research from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, for the first time more than half (53%) of Americans age 65 or older now use the Internet or e-mail.
The Internet, e-mail, cell phones, web browsers, social networking sites, search engines: these have become necessities, and it's fanciful to expect people to simply refuse to use them just because they don't like the spying, especially since the full extent of such spying is deliberately hidden from us and there are few alternatives being marketed by companies that don't spy.
What about business people like myself who suffer from brain-damage and are disabled beyond the ability to use the internet, or e-mail?
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The original device was useful enough: It shipped with a built-in Apple apps for checking the Internet, weather, e-mail, texts, stocks, calendars and the time.
New York-based cyber lawyer Parry Aftab says that targeting an individual on the Internet - by sending nasty E-mail, leaving offensive messages in guestbooks or posting misinformation about them - constitutes harassment and stalking.
In the past twenty years, businesses and private citizens alike have embraced the use of computers, electronic communication devices, the Internet, and e-mail.
When they are using the Internet, they will e-mail weekly orders to their suppliers.
Johnson Controls' software can monitor buildings worldwide over the Internet, sending an e-mail to managers if there's a problem.
Limiting the number of points at which Internet e-mail can enter your network will help reduce the damage done by viruses when they occur, according to an administrator at a major defense contractor.
At the very least a large number of users are going to start receiving new spam e-mail, having had their e-mail address leaked across the Internet.
"If you wish to poll what people think are the life-changing events that were a direct result of the Internet, you have to include e-mail, Ebay, Amazon, etc, " he said.
Such monitoring is increasingly useful, because of the growing use of e-mail, faxes and the Internet by businesses to communicate.
The company launched Internet services for e-mail, Web browsing, office productivity and photo-sharing.
But the convenience of mobile Internet and e-mail comes at a cost.
It not only created the hand-held computer category and the first workable handwriting-recognition system, it also pioneered the whole idea of doing digital tasks -- including e-mail and Internet browsing -- on a device other than the PC.
The camera can also run all the regular smartphone apps, allowing users to send e-mail, browse the Internet, listen to music and play games.
Additionally, these firms want to provide the content--including music, movies, Internet services, e-mail or business applications--that live on these devices.
This involves defining the range of applications employees need access to, from simple Internet browsing and e-mail access to the full corporate environment.
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Now think of Internet electronic commerce as the e-mail equivalent of traditional commerce's surface post.
The first obstacle to most law enforcement agencies is a lack of training in the intricacies of Internet service providers and e-mail accounts.
According to a study that was recently conducted by a team at Harvard University, it has been concluded that geographic proximity is valuable in collaboration, despite living in an era dominated by the Internet, wireless communication, and e-mail.
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