This talk discusses research being undertaken at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago and its consequences for future forms of computer-mediated communication and for the Internet. On 29 October 1969, Leonard Kleinrock's research team at UCLA transmitted a message from a computer to another one located at Douglas Engelbart's Stanford University research lab. That transmission was the first to send a message via ARPANET using packets, just like messages are sent via today's Internet. This presentation uses the occasion of the Internet's fortieth birthday to discuss research being undertaken at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago and its consequences for future forms of computer-mediated communication and for the Internet.