I'm going to tell you straight up: the Internet is not for everybody. You do not have to be online if you don't want to be. Billions of people survived for centuries without the 'net, and if the whole thing came crashing down tomorrow, they would still survive. If you don't have a reason to be there, you don't have to be if you don't want to. My reason was a game. I read a newspaper article about an online game that looked really, really interesting. The object of the game was to solve enigmatic puzzles by using every resource available, from search engines to newsgroups to music to books to whatever. And I wanted to try it. That was my reason. I still play the game, but I have to be careful, because every once in a while it takes over my life for a couple of weeks [and it is very, very hard].

You may want to be able to buy rare books, or cds you can't find anywhere else. You may want world news delivered to your home without paying for a newspaper. You may want to be able to talk to cousins in Instanbul without running up your phone bill or staying up late. You may even want more exposure for your business or resumé. Or you might just want to see what's out there.

Chances are you will find out that there is more than you imagined when you first logged in. Don't be overwhelmed; one of the most uniqe parts of the 'net is that you can determine the amount of information being thrust at ou, and you can determine how far you want to take it. I throw myself randomly into the 'net; you may not want to. That's ok.

One of the best things about being online is how easy it is to connect with people who have the same interests as you. Even if you are the only person in Mexico that's into penguin raising you can easily connect with other people who are in to your hobby. Political boundaries become meaningless on the 'net [also: the web], just like race and gender become meaningless. Man, woman, black, white, red, blue, whatever. Everybody's the same on the 'net, and everybody has the same rights. And forge all the horror stories you hear about "online stalkers" and stuff. Of the millions of people online, only a handful of crazies do stuff like that. The reason you hear so much about it is because while some people are just simply uncomfortable with technology [which is fine - that's why you're here], other people are just plain Luddites.