As I think about it, I can spend up to 6 hours a day online, easily. The internet is just a convenient way to do almost anything. I pay my cell phone bill, a credit card bill, I check my bank account balances and transfer accounts, shop, and I even have my diary online at The Opendiary. Email, if you don’t have email, you do not hear from me, unless you’re my mom and even she had a Hotmail Account.Excuse me, but where is the post office again?

I don’t even use the library as a source for research unless it’s a requirement. I feel awkward in the library and usually have to ask for help to find something. That is how foreign using the library has become to me, and with websites Barnes &Noble and Amazon.com, who needs a library card? One can buy books for good prices, new and used, and if you live in New York City you can get some books delivered same day.

Search engines like Yahoo, and websites like The Ultimates make searching ridiculously easy. I planned a whole trip to Canada online. Expedia.com helped me find hotel arrangements at a reasonable price.One can book vacation packages that include flight, hotel, and rental car all at once and all together under one rate. Expedia also offers to the street driving directions in the quickest as well as scenic routes. On Reflect.com one can create their own shampoo, conditioner, lotion, lipstick, lip pencil with their name on and whatever color and scent that they want.

Newyork.Craigslist.org has to be the best site around right now. One can find anything and everything on it for free. Personals, job searches, community events are some of the great aspects of this great site.I do nearly all job searching on it and it is free to post almost anything you like. It is also a community-based forum. Sites like BlackPlanet.com allow one to create their own web pages and interact with other members using chats, email and notes.The most beneficial aspects, to me, about the internet are being able to shop, research, search for jobs, and make travel plans.The only things I don’t purchase online are what come from department stores and the pharmacy.I love cooking and AllRecipes.com has thousand’s of recipes with just a point and click.

There are also very many negative things about the Internet as well. It is shockingly easy for an underage person to get access to adult material, hate material and other potentially dangerous materials. Fragile Innocence give tips on how to stay anorexic and what is okay to eat and pictures of slim models for inspiration. Just do a Google Search for Aryan Nation and you will get over 60,000 references to the group. Most of us already know how easy it is to get to a pornographic site, but net aides like CyberSitter.com and Net Nanny help prevent under age surfers from going where no child should have gone before. The AOL online service is also noted for their parental control abilities.

Peer-to-peer networks are at the height of controversy with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) handing out fines to those who download and share music freely. KaZaA and Grokster are still the winners in the battle despite the acclaimed Napster going legal, because they remain up and running with evidently no one to stop them. The Internet brings the good with the bad, but all in all I feel fortunate to have it. It is a very useful tool in the learning process and hold a greater means to communication, relaxation and entertainment and –aggravation!


If only we could permanently kill those...

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