With the World Wide Web turning 25 this year, the Pew Research Internet Project unveiled a massive study (with more to come) looking at how Americans' lives and attitudes have changed over the course of the Web's life.

While the Internet -- the basic backbone concept of computers connecting and communicating with each other -- has its origins in government research in the 1960s, what we normally think of as the internet, the World Wide Web, has a very specific starting point. Back in March of 1989, Tim Berners-Lee, a British computer scientist, wrote a proposal for a system of interconnected documents that would soon become the early Web after he released the code for his system for free on Christmas Day in 1990.

What has happened since, of course, is such a massive topic is hard to encapsulate in one study (or one report), but here are some of the most interesting points.

Overall Verdict

Pew's look back at 25 years of the web begins with an overall verdict, saying, "The internet has been a plus for society and an especially good thing for individual users." The research organization's first report looks at the rapid expansion of the internet over the past quarter century, finding Americans' attitudes to be "generally positive evaluations of the internet's impact on their lives and personal relationships."

Adoption and Necessity

According to Pew, 87 percent of American adults now use the internet, with nearly all well-off and young adults being connected now (99 percent and 97 percent respectively). Pew also calls the adoption of technologies related to the internet "extraordinary," with cell phone use rising from 53 percent in 2000 to 90 percent in 2014 and smartphone ownership rising from 35 percent to 58 percent in just about three years.

Pew's poll shows that the internet has become something of an essential part of life: A majority of internet users would be hard pressed without it, with 53 percent in 2014 saying it would be, in the least, "very hard" to give it up, compared to 38 percent in 2006. For the general population, that means 46 percent of all American adults would have a hard time giving up the internet. Interestingly, among all adults, mobile phones rank second in how essential technology is, at 44 percent, while only 10 percent of adults would have trouble without social media.

A total of 61 percent who couldn't see giving up the internet said access was "essential" for their career and other reasons, which translates into nearly 40 percent of all U.S. adults believing internet access was essential to their lives. Compare that to the nearly identical 42 percent of U.S. adults who had never heard of the internet in 1995, and you get a sense of how important access has become. Statistics like these give yet more weight to proponents for universal access and closing the "digital divide," which still affects many disadvantaged Latinos.

Latinos' Access: Internet and Technology

Part of Pew's massive report includes a look at computer and other internet technology adoption, as well as a demographic breakdown showing how Hispanics are faring.

For example, over eight in ten adults in the U.S. use a computer now, compared to about half as many at the birth of the Web.

But Hispanics use computers at the lowest rate of any ethnicity Pew studied, 10 percent below the general population. Latinos, as we have reported earlier, still lead the smartphone ownership category, at a statistically significant rate higher than the 58 percent average, but it's been argued that smartphones cannot be a replacement for computer-based web access: for example, it's much harder to do your homework on a smartphone.

While disparities in the kinds of access remain, all ethnicities studied in Pew's report use the internet, at least occasionally, at a rate of more than 80 percent. The only group that falls well below that number are adults 65 and older, only 57 percent of which have used the internet.

There's much more in Pew's "The Web at 25 in the U.S.," including some fascinating comparisons of Americans' views on TV versus the internet, and how Americans think the internet has impacted society and their own relationships.

Check out the full report here, and stay with Latin Post Tech, and like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for more on Latinos' lives and technology.