The whole world is a local phone call away for most of this province.	We are told that the electronic telecommunications revolution has destroyed distance. It is now cheaper to call Europe and Asia than it was to call long distance within Newfoundland and Labrador five years ago. With the Internet, costs are even lower. The whole world is a mere local phone call — or an e-mail — away for most of the people of this province. For the Telegram, this revolution has opened up a new readership of ex-patriot Newfoundlanders through the Internet. Each week more than 22,000 visits are made to the electronic version of this paper’s Web site, rated by Internet users as one of the five best newspaper sites on the Internet. It’s the next best thing to calling home for the news. A couple of weeks ago, Silicon Graphics and a number of provincial agencies announced the opening of the first digital animation training centre at the College of the North Atlantic’s campus in Stephenville. This project is designed to train the natural storytellers of the province in the new techniques of computer-driven animation. Animation, both hand-drawn and computer-driven, is a Canadian specialty dating back to the days of the National Film Board. Combined with the innate talent of Newfoundlanders to tell a tale, the new centre promises to produce a new wave of artist/technicians who can tell their stories through digital animation. Many Newfoundlanders might not realize it, but the province is actually quite a ways down the electronic highway and is ahead of many other jurisdictions when it comes to computer training and Internet “connectedness.” The school STEM-Net system has meant a rapid wiring of all the schools in the province and a quick way to increase the computer communication skills of both teachers and students. That basic training, available all across the province, is only now being introduced to other jurisdictions.
	The province is ahead of many other jurisdictions when it comes to computer training and Internet connectedness.	In Newfoundland, the problem of a sparse population in a large province makes electronic communication a natural for keeping in contact with each other and the rest of the world. As the people of the province branch out into more aspects of the telecommunications revolution, one wonders what the long-term effect will be. Clearly the old handicap of distance is more manageable than ever. As the Telegram’s Internet readers realize, being in Toronto or Calgary or Seoul is no barrier to keeping in touch with home. Similarly, being a student at a Newfoundland school is like having a window on the world through the Internet. It just remains to be seen how that revolution will affect us all over the next decades, but it seems to be the end of the isolation that has both been a blessing and curse to us over the years.