Yes...........it comes in handy. I can remember having to wait until the library opened to do genealogy research, and my technical stuff ..........had to look at numerous sources to see if there was appropriate material and order it and pay a small fortune.

It gets used at least once a week for looking up cooking directions and has saved a lot of trees since I go there now for news, instead of a paper I had to recycle.

Cheaper than long-distance phone calls to keep in touch.

And yeah...........the shopping you can do anytime of the day or night. You don't have to drive from store to store to see what they have in their physical inventory.

And, I can listen to any song I can imagine just by keying it in.

Aint it grand! And to think, I'd never have met Suzy (or loads of other people!) without it, I don't like that idea.

Cooking. I hadn't even thought of that. I look up stuff at least once a day. I'll have two odd items and think, what can I make with that? Put in __________ and ___________ then recipe, and you'd be amazed what comes up.

I love it too.Doing my shopping on line has been such a good thing.I have a back problem and can't stand for long periods and can't walk a long distance.I order everything on line, haven't been to the mall in years. And have learned so much about gardening. And have knitting forums that give such wonderful hints. I would not be able to do without a computer although there was a time when I could not imagine what all the fuss was about.

The internet shopping for me is a minor thing, I don't like shopping, except for books. My downfall is looking up a reference and two hours later I have gone from A to Z and back and visited a couple of museums besides.

I also luv the internet. Re the cooking thing, jazmynsmom was the first one I saw that suggested putting in a couple of ingrediences in a search engine and come up with possible dishes. I've passed on her suggestion to family and friends.

I enjoy the internet for the reasons listed above. I don't have it at home; only wish I did about once a month :)

Did you see the squib in the newspaper about the similarity in scanned brain activity of those who are engrossed in the web, and those who are addicted to more usual culprits such as drugs? I'm not sure how much was "addiction" and how much was habit, but leaving my 8-hours daily on-line job (when I retired) caused feelings that certainly *felt* like withdrawal pains! Seriously. And that's one of the reasons I'm not in a hurry to get the home computer on-line.

Love my computer! Only wish my friends who are my age would learn how to use one. They all claim they are too old, don't need one, don't want one, Would never be able to learn how to use it, etc. They don't know what they are missing.

I agree, Posieh. I live somewhat isolated from my interests and have gotten into the Social Networks, aka Facebook, discovered the community of writers and poets who have inspired me to try my hand at poetry and to write some of my life history, enjoy their friendships a lot, in the US, in India and in Nigeria, Europe, how would I have known I have so much in common with so many.

Did you see the squib in the newspaper about the similarity in scanned brain activity of those who are engrossed in the web, and those who are addicted to more usual culprits such as drugs?

That, I can believe because it's a basic human drive to input data or stimulii into the brain. For millenia we had to rely on personal experience, then we relied on books, then we tapped electronic media like radio and television. For all purposes logging on is connecting to a universal consciousness and might explain the transition of the mobile phone to web-enabled portable computer.

The implications to this are mind-boggling. I'd put the evolution of the internet right up there with the discovery of fire and the industrial revolution as far as how humankind could be impacted for bad or good. It's certainly a double edged sword, and begs for discernment as to how one choses to use it. You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant.

I've seen both types of older people. Ed's mom would lock it up constantly and never really learned how to use it. Mommy was able to send me what her accountant sent her and say, What form am I supposed to use to mail in my taxes? Which I looked up and sent on to her. Done. Complete 180 from Margaret. I loved loved loved Margaret, but she sure couldn't connect on a computer. We tried. It would've been great to be able to skype her when the little fella was little and they lived a state away.

I made my living as a computer programmer for a long time. I never spent a day without considering the miracle of those little 1s and 0s changing our world as they have. When we were young, who would have imagined that we would be able to send a letter or graphics to Europe, or to a whole group of people almost instantaneously.

And how about the Internet for gardeners? WOW! So much information about anything we need to know.

DH was a programmer for mainframes, during his early years. He brought me down to see the computer room, and the mainframes were huge and the room was kept very cold. After seeing that, I could not imagine having my own computer. I'm glad there are visionaries out there.
Lol, the programmers used to have some fun and write code
for bikini babes among other things. The print outs were about 5' long.

Now I've seen a story that makes me jump for joy! Carly Fleischmann's story--an autistic girl whose world unlocks after she learns how to use a computer to communicate. It's still amazing me when computers do things we could never do before.

Here is a link that might be useful: her book, but she has a blog and uses twitter