That was the prediction of J.C.R. Licklider and Robert W. Taylor, two psychologists who had seen their careers pulled into the relatively new field of computer science that had sprung up during the desperate days of World War II. The "computers" of their day were essentially giant calculators, multistory behemoths of punch cards and then electric switches and vacuum tubes, applied to the hard math of code breaking, nuclear bomb yields, and rocket trajectories.

That all changed in 1968, the year Licklider and Taylor wrote a paper titled "The Computer as a Communication Device." It posited a future in which computers could be used to capture and share information instead of just calculating equations. They envisioned not just one or two computers linked together, but a vast constellation of them, spread around the globe. They called it the Intergalactic Computer Network.

Reflecting their past study of the human mind, Licklider and Taylor went even further. They prophesied how this network would affect the people who used it. It would create new kinds of jobs, build new "interactive communities," and even give people a new sense of place, what Licklider and Taylor called "to be on line." So long as this technology was made available to the masses, they wrote, "surely the boon to humankind would be beyond measure."

Likewar: The Weaponization of Social Media by Emerson Brooking and P. W. Singer