80% of teens with Internet access spent more than 30 minutes online everyday 53% of teens with Internet access spend more than 2 hours everyday Contact Us

How the Internet Changed Teen Life | by Welton Chang Double Click. Sign on. Click. An all too familiar sight in teen homes across America and the globe. Whether going online with a cable modem, MSN, AOL, AT&T. or other local internet services, the internet is something that teens just cannot live without. Life without the internet would be what it was a few years ago: slow paced, harder to obtain information, and overall harder on all of us. Are you surprised that your phone bill has gone down since the advent of the internet? With services like ICQ and Instant messenger talking long distances with your friends is no longer a by the minute fee. It goes along with that $19.95 you pay for your internet service. Now you can talk to 30 people at the same time or go into a chat room and talk about your favorite Dawson's Creek episode or the Knicks vs Spurs game. You can keep in touch with people you met in the summer or on road trips just by trading screen names or ICQ numbers. Its as easy as JohnDoe123. Have your research papers standards risen? Most probably. Has it gotten easier to find information? Considerably. Sources such as college sites and the scientific community have made research a breeze. What's the capital of the Federated States of Micronesia? Just look it up in the CIA Worldfactbook. Need to know the density of calcium? A lot easier than an encyclopedia. And all contained on your little computer screen. No more encyclopedia Britanica. Now its encyclopedia Go.com. The Go Network, now consisting of ESPN, Disney, Infoseek, Alta Vista, and other brand name sites, offers great variety. You can find almost anything on the internet. And it's made finding life's little things into what they should be. Little things. The Dow went up 160 points and your stock went up 2% and you are ecstatic. A few years ago you wouldn't have cared. Now more teens are playing the market than ever before. With new options to allow people under 18 to manage their own accounts (called custodial accounts) teens are very much interested in the business world. "If I didn't have the internet I would just kill myself," said Warren Chia in an exclusive Hoching Internet Poll. "How else would I check my stocks and chill with my honeys everyday?" Of the people polled in the survey over 96% said they had internet service. 80% spent more than 30 minutes online everyday and 53% more than 2 hours everyday. Whether you're addicted to the internet, love chatting with your friends at odd hours in the night, or listen and watch TV from the internet instead of the old tube, then you've been affected by the internet revolution. Everyone will be if not already. The internet has definitely made life faster and easier for teens across the globe. No questions asked.