Fifteen years ago, in 1996, I was still in middle school. We had one computer (a really old Apple) in our house and logging onto AOL was by dial-up only, took at least five minutes and ended with that cheerful voice saying, “You’ve got mail!” (Anyone miss this?) The Internet has definitely changed a lot, and for the better, in a decade and a half.

For those of you interested in a visual representation of those changes, check out this wonderful infographic by Online University comparing the Internet of 1996 to today.

Some highlights:

In 1996, Americans spent 30 minutes per month surfing the web. Today, that number has skyrocketed to 27 hours.

Netscape claimed the third spot on a list of most popular site in ’96. I can barely remember what that is.

It now only takes 6 seconds for a page to load as compared to the 30 seconds it took back in the day.

via How Does the Internet of 1996 Compare to 2011? [INFOGRAPHIC] – 10,000 Words.