General
Your internet trivia questions answered with Nelly Thomas
Transcript
- Hello, and welcome to the Be Connected podcast. I'm Val Quinn and I'm a technology commentator, broadcaster, and publisher, and just so happen to be your host today, too. So from checking train times, booking restaurants, and watching videos online, even controlling light switches, we use the internet every single day for so many different things. It's completely reshaped our lives since its introduction almost 40 years ago. Believe it or not, it's actually got its 40th birthday on the 1st of January, 2023. So if I told you how many people had sent messages around the world since I started talking in this segment alone, the number would be absolutely staggering. So have a guess and I'll let you know a bit later on in our podcast what that number is. But it is really mind blowing that so much of the world can now be accessed through this tiny screen that we hold in our hands, our smartphones. And just 25 years ago that felt like science fiction. So in this episode, we are looking at the amazing facts around the internet. So that's not just what it is, but some incredible information about its history and where we've come in such a short period of time Helping us navigate this today is comedian, author, podcaster, and radio presenter Nelly Thomas. Thanks for joining us, Nelly. Great to have you.
- [Nelly] Thank you, Val. And I'm dialling in today from a phone on the wall in the kitchen. You know, with the long spiral line and I'm holding it out. I'm not really. I'm coming to you via the internet.
- [Val] Oh, I was excited there. I love a bit of retro tech, the old rotary dialer and, oh boy. That would be fun.
- [Nelly] Do you remember when you had to ask permission to use the phone? It'd be like 20 cents a phone call and you'd have to ask mum if you're allowed to call your friend?
- [Val] Oh, I do. I do. And I love it when my mum would pick up the phone while I was talking to somebody else and I thought she was listening in and .
- [Nelly] Yeah, she was listening in. I can tell you. I'm the parent of teenagers. She was listening in.
- [Val] Well, you know, now that we are in the internet age and access to information is just so extraordinary. So there there's some really fun and even bizarre facts about the internet that I'd love to unpack with you. And that includes the actual internet itself being brought up in a beer garden.
- [Nelly] Well, I mean, as a comedian, I've gotta say, Val, that doesn't surprise me, 'cause I do spend a bit of time in beer gardens and there are a lot of good ideas that are thought up in a beer garden. It is really incredible how much the internet is part of our lives. I think what's amazing for me, I think particularly, I'm a mum of a teenager, so I can see that real sort of generational shift.
- [Val] Yeah. It is a bit scary when you talk to kids and they can tell you about TikTok and some of these other amazingly popular apps that they're using on the internet. It's kind of scary when you talk to someone who's kind of grown up with the internet, just how embedded it is. I mean, if you think about it, right this minute around 4.9 billion people are using the internet, and that's for work or whether it's for leisure, relaxing, connecting to family and friends. So what do you think is the most interesting fact about the internet for you, Nelly?
- [Nelly] Look, I mean, I think there's so many things that sort of jump out to me, but probably the most interesting one for me, 'cause it's actually very different to how I use the internet, is that 90% of users connect to the internet using a mobile device. So like a mobile phone, a smartphone or an iPad, and not like I use it at a computer at a desk. Which, again, to my children seems positively antiquated. But I guess now with 5G and things like hotspots and being able to access the internet almost everywhere, we can have it literally all the time. Like I remember sitting with a friend, a comedian colleague actually, after a gig. We remembered a lyric from a song. We were trying to remember which song it was. And he had this new fangled app on his phone where he just said the lyric into the phone and then the phone told us the title of the song and who sang it. And I think that was only about 10 years ago.
- [Val] That's true. I mean, if you think about it, it's taking just a snippet of the song and then it's searching this incredibly huge database somewhere else in the world and then figuring out what it matches up to and then giving you that information. It's like magic. And speaking of speaking of facts and factoids you can look up, who came up with the worldwide web? And that worldwide web, what I mean by that, is the web pages that run on the internet. Who came up with that?
- [Nelly] When I was looking into this, I just assumed, and this could be my bias as a writer, I thought it would be a writer. I thought it would be a Mary Shelley or someone like that who would've had this vision years ahead. But it was actually a scientist, which shouldn't surprise me really. A British physicist called Tim Berners-Lee in 1989. And again, I think you're old enough to remember 1989. We're talking...
- [Val] That wasn't that long ago.
- [Nelly] Actually it's quite a while ago, if you know what I'm saying. You don't want think about how long ago it was, but we're talking The Berlin Wall came down in 1989. Microsoft Office was first released. Nintendo launched Game Boy. There was the Tiananmen Square protests, "Indiana Jones," "Dead Poets Society." "Beaches," Val. "Beaches" came out in 1989. It was a big year.
- [Val] Do you know something? I have to admit, this is a little embarrassing, but I've been a computer magazine editor for a long time and I remember, I think it was in '94. I had this conversation, like an argument, with my publisher about the worldwide web, about whether it was interesting enough a topic to write about and whether it was actually going to be something that people cared about. And I still remember this to this day and I was saying, no, I don't think so. It looks terrible. Who's gonna remember a URL or a web address to go anywhere?
- [Nelly] Okay. Val, look, you were wrong. Okay? You were wrong. It turns out it was not a flash in the pan. Mind you, if you had tried to describe to 1994-me, a young Nelly, how much I would be relying on the internet, I wouldn't have believed you. So I don't think you're the only one who didn't have that foresight.
- [Val] Well, I feel a little bit better now. Thank you very much. But also something really popular that the internet is built to do is to send emails.
- [Nelly] Emails.
- [Val] Yeah. That actually first happened in 1971 and that was created by a guy called Ray Tomlinson. And he sent the first email, not to anybody in particular, but to himself. So we don't even know what he said to himself. It was probably what, like-
- [Nelly] Test.
- [Val] Yeah. Test. So nothing too interesting.
- [Nelly] Out of office.
- [Val] Oh yeah. Out of office. But now emails, they're used in their billions every day, and you mentioned Tiananmen Square in China and China actually leads the way with the most internet usage. Obviously they've got a huge population and over 854 million users, and that makes up 20% of the total number of people online ever.
- [Nelly] Wow.
- [Val] So it is incredible. The numbers are staggering. But how many emails do you think are sent every day?
- [Nelly] By me or in the whole world?
- [[Val] Online shopping.
- [Nelly] Actually, Val, do you remember the first time you got email?
- [Val] Oh man. I think I finally got a job and they had a computer there and I could receive emails on a computer. So that was probably early 90s, maybe.
- [Nelly] Early 90s. Yeah. So I literally remember 'cause for me it was 1994. And the reason I remember it is because I distinctly remember, I was at uni, and I remember us all talking about the fact that you could now get access to free faxes. That's how we thought of emails, that you wouldn't have to pay to fax someone. And obviously now it's like email. I would send myself, I don't know, at least 20 emails a day, probably more. Certainly receive more than that. How many are sent all over the world every day? Geez. I mean, it would have to be in the hundreds of million, wouldn't it?
- [Val] Well, according to these stats, by 2025 there's meant to be an estimated 375 million emails sent every single day.
- [Nelly] Wow.
- [Val] So spam probably will take up most of those.
- [Nelly] And do you think, Val, is that gonna continue though? Because again, I mean, I'm only basing this on a household of one, but my 14 year old, for example, basically doesn't use email except for school. And that's because school's run by old people, and I include myself in that. They use Messenger and Snapchat and all that sort of thing to communicate. So I wonder, will that continue?
- [Val] Well, I think that's a really good point. So the whole idea now is to minimise your inbox clutter. 'Cause when you step into work and you've got a hundred emails, it's kind of like, that's your to-do list. So now there's more direct forms of messaging where everybody's part of a group and they can share things that way. So yeah, I think that emails are gonna, I think the problem there is spam, ultimately. There's a huge amount of spam that makes up, I can't remember the percentage, but it's a large amount of what emails are sent.
- [Nelly] Massive in mine. Are you gonna be honest with me, Val? All right, tell me straight up. How many unopened emails have you got?
- [Val] Unopened emails at the moment? Okay, I'm looking at my Outlook inbox right now and I have 839 unopened emails.
- [Nelly] Unopened. That's a lot of digital clutter dude.
- [Val] Oh, it's a lot. It's a lot. And I do my best to manage it. I'm supposed to be a tech expert and staying on top of this stuff is difficult. I have like filters and rules and all kinds of things that are meant to only surface the most important emails. And what can you do? It's just information overload.
- [Nelly] I'm gonna say, this is gonna sound a bit up myself, but I came into this conversation a bit nervous because I am a little bit of a technophobe. I try my best, but it does make me nervous and anxious. But I'm winning, Val. I've only got about 10.
- [Val] That's incredible. I'm really impressed with that.
- [Nelly] Yeah. I am on it. I don't keep text messages either. Once I've dealt with an issue, it's gone. Delete. Deal with it, get it outta the way. All right, I feel I need to offer you a service, a decluttering service. We'll chat after the podcast.
- [Val] That's right. You can declutter my closet or you can declutter my inbox. There's lots of decluttering.
- [Nelly] I'll do both then. I'll do both.
- [Val] Yeah, I think I need both. Well, let's look at some other little facts and things about the internet too. Like for example, Google searching. I have read that there's an average of 63,000 Google searches every second.
- [Nelly] Second?
- [Val] Of every day.
- [Nelly] Yeah, not minute, not hour, not day. Every single second. which shouldn't surprise us really. I mean, I was trying to think about, there's three of us in my house. I would guess we would do minimum 20 to 30 Google searches a day, whether it's for work or school or I don't know, looking up a restaurant. So if you multiply that by everyone's household, it's not surprising, but it is kind of staggering when you think, even just in terms, I don't understand how it works, but just in terms of the infrastructure.
- [Val] And if you think about it too, like all of this information is contained on computers or servers that are halfway around the world and you get these answers to your questions back near instantly. It searches this incredible ca, figures out what you want, and sends it back to you in just a fraction of a second. It's an incredible age that we live in.
- [Nelly] Yeah. So Val, I was just wondering when you do type something into Google or whichever search engine you use, and then it gives you the topics, is that sort of specific to me and my search? Does it know what Nelly's looking at on the internet? Or is that the worldwide leading topic?
- [Val] That's a really good question because it generally learns about what your interests are. Google tends to know where you're going online, what web pages you're looking at, and it can sort of build a profile that it runs through an algorithm to kind of predict what you might want. So it knows about you. And that's getting a little bit creepy for some people, which is understandable. But there are more private ways that you can sort of navigate the internet. And actually, we've got a really great Be Connected course on that called Advanced Online Security: Protecting Your Privacy Online. So you can hop onto that and learn more about it, but it's a really important part of us using the internet is keeping ourselves sort of secure and private too. And the topics, it's really interesting to see what the most popular search topics are as well. When you type in something into a search field, there's usually a little dropdown that tries to auto-complete what you're searching for. And what it suggests there is based on the most popular searches around what you're typing. So it's always interesting to see what it thinks you're trying to find, and that's based on what other people have been trying to find. And it's an interesting insight into what people's interests are and all of that.
- [Nelly] Yes. One of my favourite facts about the internet, I think it's important as well to acknowledge the women who have shaped the internet. And one of the most well known of those is Jean Armour Polly who invented the term 'surfing' alongside 'internet' in 1992. So she was a New York librarian and she coined the term. 'Cause I think it's not a natural, it's not something that I would instinctively come up with, the idea of 'surfing the web', but now it's so ubiquitous that it sort of makes sense. She was also known as like the internet mum or in American, I guess the net mom, which I don't know about, Val, but I find has got a slight sexist tinge to it. But she was really important in the development of the internet.
- [Val] It is great to see that there's women involved in the foundation of the internet and what we're doing today. And I always wondered too, sort of how surfing connected to it all, but there you go. Well, speaking of other women in technology, did you know that the Queen of England sent her first email in 1976? So yeah, Queen Elizabeth II, she took part in this demonstration to showcase the new technology.
- [Nelly] Well, Val, I think it would be odd if I did know that. Let's be honest. That is a very obscure fact. But I tell you what, as someone who attends a lot of quiz nights, that is an excellent quiz fact. Because if you had said to me, when did Queen Elizabeth send her first email, I would not have guessed as early as 1976. I reckon I would've gone 1986 at best, maybe even 1996. That is very early, much earlier than I would've thought.
- [Val} In the grand scheme of technology that's an incredibly early email. So yeah, she was given some pretty amazing access to this crazy new technology at the time.
- [Nelly] And do we know what she said in her email and who she emailed?
- [Val] You know, I'm sure it was private.
- [Nelly] Yeah.
- [Val] We're probably not privileged enough to know that information.
- [Nelly] It'll come outta the vault in about 50 years.
- [Val] Yeah, it'll be a scandal.
- [Nelly] Yeah.
- [Val] But here's another question for trivia. What do you think Wi-Fi stands for?
- [Nelly] I have thought about this before. I don't know why, but I assume the 'fi' is fidelity, in the same way that you do with radios and so on. But the 'wi', I mean, is it wide? Wide fidelity?
- [Val] I think you got really close. My understanding is it's wireless fidelity.
- [Nelly] Ah.
- [Val] And it came from that whole kind of audio, high-fidelity, high-fi sort of thing. And it wasn't anything formal. They just thought that, hey, if high fidelity means great quality music production, let's say Wi-Fi is a form of internet access that was superior to normal wired internet. So there you go.
- [Nelly] Speaking of smart, what is a smart home and why on earth would I want one? All I can see is this vision of a fridge telling me what I need to order in the shopping, how many calories I've eaten that day, heckling me, Val. Heckling me! This is not a vision of a happy home to me.
- [Val] Yeah. We're not talking heckled homes, we're talking smart homes. A smart home, I guess the way I describe that is that it's a home that has devices in it that are connected it to the internet. And these are devices like web cameras and thermostats and you're right, smart appliances, which could be a fridge, stove, washing machine, dishwasher that are internet connected.
- [Nelly] Well, and I understand you've done a previous episode on smart homes in this podcast series, which I think I'm gonna have to go back and listen to, because I've gotta tell you Val. I'm not convinced. So in practical terms, I'm in the beer garden. I'm out at night and I think I can send a message to my smart home to put the lights on so that burglars think I'm home. Am I gonna put a lasagna on? Why Val? Why?
- [Val] Okay, well, here's how it works. You're sitting at the beer garden and you're thinking, okay, I'm not at home. I wonder when the kids are gonna come home. Your smart security cameras are connected to the internet and say when your daughter comes home, you'll get a ping from the security camera showing a picture of who just came in the front door. So you're like, okay, well, good. I know they're home. And then you're thinking, I might pick up some milk on the way home. I think I'm running out. But what you can do is then you can pick up your phone and you can ask your smart fridge to show you a picture of inside the refrigerator to see if there's anything else that might be running out.
- [Nelly] Wow.
- [Val] So then you can have that information. And if you want to, you can prewarm the oven so you can make some, I don't know, a late night snack when you get home. So there's all these types of things that you can actually do. Or if you wanted to start the robot lawnmower out back and have it do a night cut so it looks fresh in the morning, you can do that from your phone at the beer garden. So those sorts of things you can do.
- [Nelly] Wow.
- [Val] I guess it just gives you more control over those devices. You can change your thermostat, change the temperature, all of those types of things. There are currently 258.54 million smart homes in the world, and there's 15.9 million smart home devices like these smart speakers, like your Amazon Echo or your Google Home or your HomePods. So there's lots of those too. Another thing, another plug into some of the great courses we have, is we have one which is called Introduction to Smart Homes: What is Smart Home Technology?, where you can really dig in and learn all about it from a beginners point of view, up to some great intermediate topics as well. So that's a good one to check out.
- [Nelly] I mean, evidently I need to do that because I'm conflicted. I don't wanna just be resistant to new things. I think that's a really bad attitude, but there's also part of me going, like when I was researching for these podcasts it's like smart bird houses and smart desk mats and smart pillows. And I'm like, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.
- [Val] That's very, very true. There's something I call technology for its own sake. And there's a lot of examples of that. Like my electric toothbrush I can connect to the internet and why, you know? Well it can gimme some brushing tips and tell me how effective I'm brushing, but maybe I don't really want to know.
- [Nelly] I mean, it's just a bigger picture sort of question for me. Speaking of though, can I pivot to my trivial use of the internet? And I don't care if you like it or not, Val. I'm just gonna be completely honest. I only just started on Instagram this year, so I'm very much a late adopter, but I basically put pictures of food on it.
- [Val] You're one of those food posters, huh? Okay.
- [Nelly] Yeah. People joke about that. Like who wants to see your fish fingers, Nelly? But I just really like it. I like seeing what people are eating in their homes. I like meals. I'm a foodie. I like to see what people do. If you had to guess, what do you think is the most photographed food on the internet?
- [Val] Well, apparently from what I've heard the most digitally photographed food is actually pizza. So there you go.
- [Nelly] Pizza. And I'm like, what is that about? I mean, is it because pizza itself is so common or is there something really satisfying, maybe because it is considered by some junk food? Like is it because it's a bit taboo?
- [Val] I think people get excited about pizza because-
- [Nelly] Oh, I do.
- [Val] There's passion about pizza and it just makes me hungry when I look at it. But also the second place one, guess what this one is? It's not pizza and it's probably a lot healthier. It's actually sushi. So that's number two.
- [Nelly] Sushi. Yeah. That makes sense to me because sushi is very visually satisfying. The colours are beautiful and you do feel kind of virtuous, don't you, eating sushi.
- [Val] Yep. It's the more aesthetic choice to take a photo with-
- [Nelly] Yeah, I think so.
- [Val] 'Cause you can make it look quite beautiful.
- [Nelly] Cultured.
- [Val] Yeah. More cultured. But then we jump right back into juicy steaks, burgers, and bacon.
- [Nelly] Now I've got another question for you. Just have a guess, stab in the dark. On average, how many hours a day do you think people use the internet?
- [Val] I guess if you're working, and most people work online, it's gotta be probably around seven, nearly seven hours a day using the internet.
- [Nelly] Indeed, it is nearly seven hours a day. Do you know how many hours, 'cause I get the notification on my phone, how many hours a the day do you use the internet.
- [Val] With Apple you get this, there's a a monitor called Screen Time that you can look at your screen time figures.
- [Nelly] Yes.
- [Val] So when I look at that, I could probably check right now and it is... Okay, so my average is, oh my god. Okay, 7.2 hours of time online a day. That's terrifying.
- [Nelly] 7.2. Okay, I was actually really worried about this until I spoke to you, Val. Mine is 2.3.
- [Val] That's it? Wow, that's not so much.
- [Nelly] It's not, is it? But I still think that's an extraordinary amount of time.
- [Val] It is a lot of time. And screen time consolidates time across your computer, your phones, and your tablets too. So it tracks everything, but that's kind of terrifying. But it just goes to show you, it is a very, very big part of our lives, the internet. Google, I was reading, has 5.6 billion searches every day.
- [Nelly] What are we looking for? It reminds me of my, so my Nanna who died when she was 97, so she was born in the early 1900s. I remember I came home from uni one summer and I was reading a book. She wasn't a big reader. And she said to me, she's like, "Nelly, what else do you need to know?" And I think imagine if my darling Nanna was alive now and looking at 5.6 billion Google searches a day. Like, what are we asking?
- [Val] There's a lot of things people are searching for, aren't there, when you think about it that way, and you're absolutely right. But it's amazing. You'll get answers. If you're looking for the latest movie, the ratings, or how do I get from A to B, it's just incredible now. I mean, I use my smart speaker and ask it things, which then it goes to Google and checks and then tells me, converting metric to Imperial or, I'm embarrassed to say, what day is it today?
- [Nelly] What platform do you, so are you mostly on email? Are you mostly on, I don't know, Facebook? Like what are you mostly using?
- [Val] I actually try to limit my social networking time.
- [Nelly] Yeah.
- [Val] But when it comes to relaxation, I actually find that I spend a lot of time on YouTube, watching little short videos around topics that I'm interested in. And people create new stuff every day, so there's always something to watch. And then another good one is Reddit where there's a lot of discussions, again, based around people's interests and it can keep you for hours if you're not careful. What about you Nelly? What's yours? What's your most common sort of platform?
- [Nelly] Well, I'm very kind of strict with myself. I don't have any social media on my phone because I don't like to be on my phone too much, especially I like to be present. If we're gonna talk about the negatives, I think there's nothing that upsets me more than if I'm with another human being and they're on their phone. So I mainly use it, I use Facebook, which I think for a lot of people's becoming old, old technology now, but for me, it's a way to be connected with old friends. I don't live in the place that I grew up. I'm connected with colleagues. Obviously during COVID, it's been huge for social connection and I've got a couple of kids with disabilities, so I'm in various sort of carer kind of support groups and they have been, I can't tell you how important they have been to me, particularly over the last few years. So a lot of positives there for me with Facebook. And I like seeing what my friends are doing. I wasn't on Facebook for many years. I was quite against it, and I missed a lot of stuff. I mean, one of my friends had a baby and I didn't know, you know?
- [Val] Wow.
- [Nelly] Because they had shared that they were pregnant and having this baby on Facebook and I wasn't on there. So I enjoy that. And yeah, the usual, the streaming services get a lot of a run in my house, the Netflix and those kinds of things. And definitely for the kids, they watch far more YouTube and they basically don't watch free-to-air TV. They watch YouTube.
- [Val] Yeah. The good thing about YouTube is that you can kind of dive in and watch something short and then kind of dive out again. But yeah, to your point about Facebook and it really does connect you. And I think that's the best part about what the internet can do is it can bring us closer to the people we care about or to the communities that we share common interests with, and find information or just a sense of belonging and community. And during the COVID times, it's been really isolating. I'm thankful that the internet was there to kind of keep us, whether it's streaming Netflix or video conferencing with loved ones overseas. There's some real benefits to the internet as well. Oh, and also, I should mention too that if you wanna learn more about social media apps, we've got a great Be Connected course just called Social Media Apps, and we've got an introduction to Facebook. So if you're not using it, which most people are, you can get some more great tips about how to use it too.
- [Nelly] Well, and I think people who are reticent about it, and I understand that 'cause like I said, I'm a late adopter to these things. But one of the things so that I didn't know that you could do, and you'll probably learn this in the course, if you are getting messages or seeing posts from someone who upsets you or who is offensive or whatever, there are ways actually to deal with that, whether you block them or snooze them or whatever it is. You don't actually have to be exposed to everything on Facebook. And I think before you use it, it feels like that's how it's gonna be, and it's actually not. You can limit it to the people that you want to interact with and it actually can be really uplifting. Yeah, for me, it's been really positive actually on the whole.
- [Val] That's really good, and it does bring us closer to those people. And obviously it's good to be informed and aware, but I would welcome anybody to hop onto social networking to really kind of experience what it can offer. And we've got great courses to support that.
- [Nelly] And I think it's great too to do a course like that before you get involved.
- [Val] Yes, definitely do some research, inform yourself, and then hop in there. But there you have it. You know, Nelly, we could probably go on about the internet for hours because it's one of my favourite topics and it really does affect every part of our lives if we want it to, or even if we don't. Thank you so much for joining me for this Be Connected podcast. It's been great just to hear your knowledge and experience and to get your perspective on everything. So I really appreciate your time today.
- [Nelly] Oh my pleasure. Thank you for having me. And I hope to be able to come to your house in person one day, declutter your emails, declutter your closet, and maybe have a look at your browser history.
- [Val] Well look, I think you're gonna be very, very busy. You may have bitten off a little more than you can chew there. It's a big job.
- [Nelly] Thanks for having me, Val.
- [Val] No, my pleasure. Oh, and for those of you out there who guessed how many text messages were sent just during my brief little introduction at the beginning of this podcast, there were 8.2 million emails and 4 million text messages in just about 20 or 30 seconds. It is mind blowing. If you like what you heard, please subscribe to receive all of the latest episodes and leave a review to help others find us too. And remember to visit the show notes for more information on anything we've covered today. I know we've talked about a lot of stuff and it includes links to other useful materials too. And lastly, to discover other great topics, go to BeConnected.esafety.gov.au. That's BeConnected.esafety.gov.au. I'm Val Quinn and I look forward to your company next time.
- Be Connected is an Australian government initiative developed by the Department of Social Services, The eSafety Commissioner and Good Things Foundation Australia. Be Connected builds the digital skills, confidence, and online safety of all Australians with engaging online learning resources and a network of over 3,500 community organisations to support them to thrive in a digital world.
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Guest: Nelly Thomas
Show notes
From checking train times, booking restaurants, watching videos online, even controlling light switches, the internet has fundamentally changed the way we live our lives and interact with our world.
Join our host Val Quinn and comedian, author, podcaster and radio presenter Nelly Thomas, as they explore the most fascinating facts about the internet. You’ll be the smartest person in the room on trivia night.
DISCOVER MORE:
- Sign-up and build your digital skills for free at Be Connected
- Learn about smart home technology and devices
- Learn about protecting your privacy online
- Discover useful apps for your smart devices
- Learn about social media apps
- Learn about connecting to others with video calling
- Listen to more podcast episodes
- Val mentions YouTube for watching videos
- Val mentions Reddit for discussions
- Join us on Facebook
- Valens Quinn on Instagram
- Valens Quinn on LinkedIn
- Find out more about Nelly Thomas
- Listen to Nelly's podcast
Be Connected is an Australian Government initiative developed by the Department of Social Services, the eSafety Commissioner and Good Things Foundation Australia. Be Connected builds the digital skills, confidence, and online safety of all Australians with engaging online learning resources, and a network of over 3,500 community organisations to support them to thrive in a digital world.
Be Connected acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land on which we live and work, and pays respect to their Elders, past, present and emerging.
