Imagine a world with no Internet capabilities; no e-mail, no social networking sites, no online banking and no online shopping.

“I wouldn’t function without my cell phone and Facebook,” said Megan Carlson, senior FCNS child development major. “I would go crazy.”

If the entire Internet were to crash, some may be surprised the extent it would have on society. Jim Leon, director of information technology training in the department of computer science, said every aspect in a person’s life is impacted by the Internet.

“The exchange of monetary data would have the largest impact and effect on our lives, because it goes to the bottom line: money,” said communications professor David Gunkel.

Both Gunkel and Leon agree it’s highly improbable for the Web to be taken out. Since this type of technology was created during the Cold War and made to sustain a nuclear bomb from the Soviet Union, Gunkel said the network is built for survival.

“It’s not designed like any other previous network so it’s immune to a lot of the vulnerabilities that are usually associated with central networks,” Gunkel said.

Also, most critical institutions are backed up and have disaster recovery techniques in place, Leon said.

If online capabilities were lost, however, Gunkel said he thinks society would basically fall apart.

Leon disagrees.

“Society was able to function before the Internet and so maybe it would be more of an inconvenience, but I don’t think it would bring society to an enormous halt if there was a massive crash,” he said.

In a world where information is at the click of a mouse, Lindsay Weigel, senior corporate communications major, said she thinks society takes this type of technology for granted and younger generations appreciate it less, because it has been around most of their lives.

“I think people wouldn’t know what to do, and they wouldn’t know how to revert back,” Carlson said.