What life changes did internet for you?

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What has internet meant for you in regard of important changes in life? For starters WP would not been possible without. And it's a great place to connect with interesting people and learning material. Enables people to bypass NTism.

It kept me sane.
It allowed me to find my current boyfriend, and to interact with people in a medium I am comfortable with.

Same as the above poster but not the dating thing.

Without the internet I would have been bored. As someone who has lived out in the country or in a suberbia where social interaction is kind of hard to go by the internet lets me connect to people and discuss simmilar interests with people.

I got a relationship and then met my husband
It helped me meet other people on the spectrum thanks to finding autism groups
I found a playgroup for my son
I can get directions online to get to places and it tells me what routes to take
I also found kinky groups in my area thanks to the internet
I can find stuff online that be hard to get in real life such as certain video games or books or magazines

I bought things off the internet like my current electronic keyboard and all my guitars.
I connect with folks on Wrong Planet.
I've found publishers for my short stories from the internet.
I get my news from CNN.com, USA Today.com and other sites.
I watch Monday & Thursday Night Football on the internet as I only have basic cable.
I've built up a huge classical music collection thanks to the internet.
I access Wikipedia a lot even though I sometimes doubt its accuracy or story telling skills.
I've applied for jobs off the internet.
I apply for unemployment insurance benefits and access my bank account off the internet.
I learned about Asperger's Syndrome from the internet.

It probably made me more stupid. How anyone could have done a degree in any serious science subject or law at a time before the internet was common is beyond me. I constantly find my self having learnt enough to be able to understand the knowledge, but needing to look it up to apply the knowledge again.

Made me forget how to live like a normal human being and how to communicate face to face.

I constantly get the urge to just throw my computer in the trash but Im just too hopelessly addicted to message boards and online games. Id literally have nothing to do most days without it.

It helps me to rearrange my thoughts and make some sense of it to other people. It gives me enough time to communicate. In person, I talk at people, on the internet I hope to talk with people.

I have met more people through the internet than I could ever dream of doing that in person.

Internet is God for me. It gives me almost anything I need. Info, entertainment, music, movies, etc.
It is the greatest thing in the history of mankind - at least, for me.

I spend way too much time on the internet. Without it, I would be forced to leave the house to go to the library. Worse yet, I would find it nigh unto impossible to find certain small parts and such for my many projects without it. Plus, I would find it much more difficult to be exposed to different cultures and schools of thought.

For me the internet is a dream come true for people with Aspergers/on the Autism spectrum. It allows us to communicate with others while cutting out nearly all of the unncessecary NT social rituals and body language/voice tone/eye contact, etc.

Another great thing is it allows you to do things that you would normally need a phone to call someone to do, such as scheduling an appointment, checking in or making reservations. I personally hate talking on the phone and refuse to do it unless my life is on the line, so I love that I have the option to use the internet to do the same thing over having to make a phone call.

Shopping is another big one. Why use up your $4 a gallon gas driving around to shop, having to deal with stupid idiots and screaming kids everywhere you go when you can shop to your heart's content without even leaving your house. You also have a much better selection of items online and you can easily compare prices, read reviews on items. Things are usually cheaper on the internet as well, even with shipping. That's why I don't get Black Friday. Look at all those idiots who camp out at the first stroke of midnight, while losing any sense of human compassion and turn into a stampede of greedy mass consumerists willing to crush anyone or anything in their path for that "trinket of the year" when you can simply buy all that same crap online. I feel so bad for the retail employees who have to put up with that horrible display of humanity every year along with barely getting any days off during that time. You get the same deals online, and then of course there's the Cyber Monday, which is the internet version of Black Friday without the public chaos.

Ok, rant over.

Then there's the whole "World Wide Information Hub" aspect of the net which is great for anyone who wants to learn or research anything on their own. It's literally never ending information at your disposal and you can find so many rare things if you know where to look. The internet can be an amazing tool but it is what you make of it. The internet is neither good nor evil. It's how you use it.

Gave me information about living with autism, and how to cope, explain to family and friends, and the like.

It gives me something to do all day.

It allows me to stay in contact with Chris, and to a lesser extent, my parents, and to an even lesser extent, Ian and Sherry.

It's greatly expanded my musical tastes. Before I discovered internet radio, I relied on the two local top 40 stations for my musical tastes. Now, I don't, and I'm always surprised to hear most of my favorite songs anywhere but on my computer.

I find it has changed my life in both positive and negative ways. The positives are that I can keep in contact with people I meet at Tourettes conferences as we all live quite far apart. I can talk to my brother and father who both live miles away from me. I like coming on WP and talking to people who are like me. I can look things up quickly, without having to go out to a library or search through old books which smell funny.

Negatives are that I can often get too obsessive with the internet and sit for hours on it. I have noticed my attention span has decreased significantly since the introduction of 24/7 internet (I used to be able to draw but now I procrastinate terribly!). I have started arguments by mistake because people have misread/misunderstood something I have written (although you could argue that this is a problem for me in real life too!). I also get frustrated when things don't load quickly any more and I have a habit of kicking my computer as a result! I know it doesn't do anything physically but it feels so damn good!

So basically it's about 50/50 I would say. I kind of miss the old days before internet but I would also miss talking to people online.

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I have HFA, ADHD, OCD & Tourette syndrome. I love animals, especially my bunnies and hamster. I skate in a roller derby team (but I'll try not to bite )

I know one thing...I haven't bought a single music CD in years thanks to the Internet nor have I needed to physically visit a movie theater or video rental place. I also can watch whatever tv shows I want at my own pace and don't have to own a TV much less a cable or satellite subscription. Even though I'm stuck in a conservative hellhole, I can "travel" the world and learn about different cultures. And there's no way I could've made it through grad school without internet tools for research. I keep up with my long distance family members and friends, something that would've been impossible without a computer.

Internet allowed me to meet my best friend. I never had a best friend before I met her online. She and I have been bffs since 2006. I also love how the Internet instantaneously allows for access to information and forms of entertainment media. YouTube is wonderful! Whenever you want to look up a TV or movie clip or listen to a song, YouTube's got you covered.

As for finding information, I remember how hard reports were back in elementary school, before the Internet was in wide circulation. If you couldn't find the right information in library books or encyclopedias, you were out of luck! Google and PubMed have been a Godsend for me, in terms of intellectual curiosity and academia. I can't even imagine going back to research without the Internet. If I stumble upon a term I don't know while reading, I type it into Google, and boom! I have the answer immediately. Need the latest neuroscience studies' conclusions from around the world? PubMed's got that covered. That is simply amazing. Just think how tedious finding journal articles must have been before the Internet...