Bill Murray has once said, “If Google does not know the answer, it is not a question.” Even though an absolutely untrue quote, it definitely makes one wonder what all the internet knows. An encyclopedia larger than any book at your fingertips, that’s what the internet is. However, encyclopedias seldom have mistakes or misinformation printed, while the internet is often just an overload of data and information from multiple sources around the world. This needs multiple layers of fact-checking before we can actually believe it. 

In this tech-savvy world, knowing how to work with the Internet is extremely important. But before that, let’s understand how the internet works!

What is the internet?

The internet is a worldwide system that connects computers and devices globally, enabling communication, information sharing, and access to digital services. Think of it as the world’s biggest bookshelf, with over 1.8 billion websites as of 2026. This web is almost like a community-led system, which works because people keep adding information and interacting with it.

But how do we access this bucketload of information? Without access, all of the data is quite useless in the world. This is where search engines come in. 

A search engine is a web-based software program designed to find information on the internet using bots. Some examples include Google, Bing!, Yahoo, etc. How does it work? First, the bots roam the internet, indexing trillions of pages. They note keywords, links, and freshness. When you search, an algorithm ranks results using the data collected by the bots using signals like relevance, authority, and popularity.

How is the internet so smart?

Does the internet actually have all the answers, then? Definitely not! There are multiple loopholes in how the internet works. Since it is a compilation of data from different places, the authenticity and genuineness of the information you might get from the internet is doubtful. Expert-written and reviewed data, along with random things someone has written, might get mixed up, so selecting the right source online is extremely important. AI-led browsers on top of that might make things even messier since tools like large language models (LLMs) don’t just search; they create answers from patterns in data they’ve “learned.”

Misinformation is plentiful on the internet, and as much as a boon, the speed at which data spreads online is also a bane in the case of wrong information. Anyone can post fake news, from hoax health cures during pandemics to factually incorrect historical dates; misinformation can often be hidden within any data you might pick from the internet. 

Dangerous dependency 

Most of us were born into a digital era and must have learnt to ‘Google’ a doubt before most life skills. The internet will definitely always have answers — not always right, not always wrong. It is up to you to verify with experts and genuine sources before blindly believing them. So instead of becoming dangerously dependent on it, remember to use it wisely by verifying it by using your brain and common sense as well!