Packets have a short life (although its all a matter of perspective really), in general a packet that lasts much more than a few tens of milliseconds is doing well. Some packets have been known to live for as long as 700ms and travel into space but in generally most exist for a far shorter period of time and never make it out of the ground.
Despite their short lifetime they have an important purpose without which the Internet would cease to exist. They carry the messages we send to friends, orders we send to online shops, directions to help us through traffic, films, weather, everything!
What are these packets? Well really they're more of a concept than a substantial physical being, manifesting as strings of electrons or photons but little more. Their purpose, to convey little messages across the Internet. Created by many things, computers, phones, TV's anything that needs to talk to anything else over a network they come into being at the push of a button and cease to exist on reaching their destination (or occasionally being lost along the way!).
'Click' and a packet comes into being. Its orders to retrieve a web page from the other side of the world. Before setting off into the unknown it receives some important details of its mission. Firstly the name of the page it is to retrieve, secondly the details of where it is to find the keeper of the page and thirdly the details of where it has come from so that future packets can deliver on its request. Navigating to its destination won't be easy, no maps exist so it can only ask locals for their guidance on which direction to take next, none of them knowing the full journey. Our intrepid packet boldly sets of on its journey making its way from the comfort of its electronic creator down a copper road until it comes to its first junction. Even just getting started on its path requires many decisions, left, right, straight on, each time being guided by locals who pass on their honest best guess. As it gets further and further along its journey the pathways become bigger, grander it joins increasingly busy routes where many other packets also go about their task often converging for a while before veering off to alternative destinations. Each leg on this journey takes a different amount of time but generally at the a start and end the legs are short with legs in the middle taking longer as the packet crosses oceans and continents. Nearing the end of the journey each leg of the journey becomes shorter again. Packets seem to be all heading toward similar destinations, we must be nearing the right place. Finally the final direction and yes, this person knows exactly where our packet should go, 'second door on the right and go straight in'! Collapsing through the door in exhaustion our packet takes its place in the queue behind the others sent from around the world all to this same destination, it reaches the front of the queue, hands over details of its assignment and 'puff' ceases to exist.
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