What the internet actually is
Computer Science · Key Stage 1 · The School
Wires, not clouds
The internet is millions of computers joined by real cables. Some of those cables lie on the sea floor. They run all the way between continents. Phones join in by radio instead. "The cloud" is not in the sky. It is somebody's computer, in a building, plugged into those cables. Once you know that, the whole thing feels much less strange.
What happens when you visit a page
You type an address. Your device asks a name server where that is. Back comes a number, called an IP address. Your device asks that computer for the page. The page comes back in small pieces called packets. The packets may travel by different routes. Your device puts them back in order. All of it takes a fraction of a second.
Internet vs Web
The INTERNET is the network of joined computers. The WORLD WIDE WEB runs on top of it. The Web is pages, linked together. Email, video calls and games run on the internet too. They are not the Web. Think of roads and buses. The roads are the internet. The buses are one thing that uses them.
You type a web address. (1) Your computer asks a DNS server for the number. (2) It sends a request to that number. The request is split into small packets. (3) The packets go through your router. Then your provider's network. Then undersea cables to the server. (4) The server sends the page back, in packets. Your browser puts them in order and draws them. All of it in under a second. Steps 2 to 4 are the internet. The page itself is the web.