The online Oxford dictionary of US English usage defines cyberspace as:
The notional environment in which communication over computer networks occurs.I suppose that's a clear and workable definition, but I'd think that today it's not really necessary - people simply say "the internet" and everyone is supposed to understand what they're referring to. What's more, many of us no longer feel any need to maintain a distinction between the formats, or the frameworks, in which we go about our lives. For those reasons I assumed that the use of the term peaked a number of years ago and that its use has been declining, even precipitously, since then. Turns out I was wrong.
“Cyberspace” suggests a place other than the real world. Perhaps that’s how things once felt, when online life was still sparkly and anarchic back in the 1980s, but that’s not where we are now. Everything’s going online. When Eric Schmidt said last month that “the internet will disappear”, he was right – the online and offline worlds will merge to such a degree that the connecting infrastructure will no longer be apparent and the split will be meaningless.But if Meyer is right and these two once distinct worlds have merged, then there really isn't anything for me to write about here. And maybe I'm not alone, and the vast amount of commentary on cyberspace, and how it's different from the rest of our lives, is being maintained and expanded by people who refuse to recognize today's merged reality because if they were to do so they'd instantly run out of things to write about.