IT seems unthinkable for most people living nowadays that there was a time we didn’t have the World Wide Web at our fingertips.

Now celebrating its 25th birthday, it has changed almost everything in modern western society. And like anything that changes everything, some of the results are very good and others pretty awful.

Because, like all technology, how much of a help or hindrance it is to society depends on whoever happens to be using it at any given moment.

It is people that give the web a grubby name, just as it is people who have used it to revolutionise our lives in incredible ways.

Tim Berners-Lee, the man who created www (and who, remarkably, gave it to the world for free) this week suggested a Magna Carta-like bill of rights be drawn up for it, so users can enjoy the internet without fear of state or corporate intervention and surveillance. He spoke of enshrining principles of free speech, privacy and responsible anonymity for users.

Easier said than done, I suspect, but at the very least it is about time we were able to go online without facing a steady war of attrition with hard-selling firms. Search for a laptop or sports bag on a shopping website, say, and soon you are bombarded with adverts for them on every page you visit. The first time you notice it, the tactic seems clever.

But then it slowly graduates to being annoying and then even faintly creepy. And whoever surely invented pop-ups deserves a special place in hell.

Throw in the state control favoured by some nations, the vileness of cyber-bullying, the largely feeble-minded bile spewed by anonymous online trolls on message boards, and the so called ‘Dark Web’ – populated by paedophiles, drug dealers and cybercriminals - and the web can feel like a scary and oppressive place.

So a Magna Carta for the internet? Why not? The world’s technology at such speed, it would be good to know where we all stand before we start getting wireless receivers embedded in our own skulls.

And it’s about time the web was reclaimed for those who mostly want to use it for shopping, organising social events, looking up questionable facts on Wikipedia, downloading music and watching funny videos of skateboarding dogs and whatnot.

Speaking of highlighting the negative about technology, up until this week the majority of coverage 3-D printers seem to have got is that thugs, idiots and would-be terrorists can possibly manufacture their own guns.

A horrible thought and a valid fear – but at the other end of the spectrum are some astonishing benefits that seem to have been buried under this panic.

This invention has incredible applications for surgery, prosthetics, scientific discovery, manufacturing and almost anything you can think of.

Like the web, the 3-D printer’s possible benefits seem limitless. The potential to change lives for the better is mind-blowing –yet it’s major break into mainstream news came with a focus on its potential for harm.

Take that logic to its ultimate and we should probably abolish cars, ground our planes and ban electricity forever.