What is the internet?

You send a message. The message reaches a phone far away in a second.

The internet is many computers joined together.

The internet passes a message from computer to computer.

A and B are two other computers. Each pass from one computer to the next is one hop. You to A is hop 1. A to B is hop 2. B to your friend is hop 3. So the message makes 3 hops. Each hop takes only a tiny part of a second.

"The cloud" means someone else's computer. That computer is in a real room.