This Bonus episode is the second in a four-part series we're calling The Future of.

Dot, dot, dot. We'll be exploring how changes to the way we live, learn, work, and play may shape our health and well-being in years to come.

Thanks to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for supporting this episode.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is committed to improving health and health equity in the United States.

Learn more about them at our WJF.org.

This is 99% invisible.

I'm Roman Mars.

When the pandemic hit everything that could possibly be done online made the jump,

work, job hunting, school, doctor's visits, and the shift was hard for everyone,

but many Americans didn't even have the fundamental thing

needed to make that change.

For online learning to work, students and teachers need a fast and reliable internet connection, but dozens of communities across the state don't have that option.

As you don't have access on internet.

Salas says because these don't have internet. There is no signal where they live.

They were like how am I supposed to turn in this assignment I have to drive and sit outside of

a McDonald's to be able to do my learning?

That was actually doing that?

People without internet access showed up at emergency rooms during a pandemic for non-emergencies

because they just weren't able to do a video appointment.

And when the time came, there was no refreshing their browser to find out where to get a vaccine.

And the lack of access isn't just in rural areas, as is often assumed. About one in five people in New York City

don't have any internet access at all, not even through the data plan on their

...