Everything and everybody is online. The internet is the place people go to when they want to connect with friends, book a plane ticket, see a TV show or even get their teeth fixed. Nearly 3 billion people are on the internet world over, and more and more of them are using the internet for almost every activity. The internet is a drug, as it provides quick access and fast information. People are losing patience, and that is where you need to change your gears too.

I hope my story teaches two things. 1) The process involved in building your own website, from domain name registration to adding sections and revising your design and 2) how the need for perfection and growth can dominate your life, squeezing out your social and personal life.

But where will it all end? Pretty soon a techneck will know everything about everything. Then what? Nothing more to type in! Nothing more to wonder about or imagine. Nothing more to experience – the end of experience, the final intellectual gasp where nothingness raises its beautiful head.

Take Inventory. Having awareness is vital. Ask yourself: “What am I missing from my life by spending too much time on Internet?” Then go ahead and write down your thoughts. Believe me, you’ll be surprised what you could be doing instead. You could be spending time with loved ones, with friends, working on a hobby or skill. By making that list and being aware, you’ll feel more productive and proud of yourself. Don’t waste life.

Flash forward 5 years: I was engaged to be married, and expecting a baby. Like many pregnant women, the internet was my tool for information, and i soon stumbled apon a pregnancy chatroom. I returned to that chatroom the next day, and found that many of the same people had been coming back for months, even years to mingle with their fellow expectant moms. I started swapping belly photos with them, then baby pictures, and eventually we started hooking up webcams. We exchanged phone numbers. My daughter is turning 3 this year, and I still pop into the virtual room every once and a while.

ARE You an ADDICT? Online or smartphone addiction is comparable to smoking you have to do it more than once a day and if you don’t you start to feel anxious, irritable, worried and desperate for your next time.

The problem becomes even worse if you need your computer to do work. If you do, then you should keep your computer at home off, or at least offline. If you are not using a computer at work and find that you are having problems with your home computer, but cannot simply turn it off, there are a few things that you can do. The first is to set up a new user on your system who doesn’t have access to instant messaging, and can only use a few web sites. That will put a damper on your extraneous surfing. If you do not have an always-on connection (ie if you use dial-up) then the problem is a little easier. Just don’t connect. That will make it easier for you to keep yourself from the distractions that the internet provides.

The main point of all of this is to get people to be active in one way or another to the group. It’s fine and dandy to have a thousand members, but if only ten of them are actually doing anything . it’s really not a very useful thing.