Digital Lifestyle Keeps Us In Touch @ (NAPSA)—Notlong ago, some experts predicted the Internet would break down communities, as computer users spent more time in their own virtual worlds andless time interacting with real people. Turnsout they were wrong, as technologies such as e-mail and instant messaging have in fact helped bring people closer. According to a recent study from UCLA, 44 percent of Americans say the Internet has increased or greatly increased contact with friends and family. “Instant messaging helps bring people, youngand old, together to have fun and communicate in a comfortable social setting,” said Amy Jo Kim, author and an architect of online communities. “Young people especially rely on IM and e-mail to define and reinforce their identities and meet like-minded kids. Services like MSN Messenger allow them to chat and play games, such as Billiards and Chess, with friends across the country.” Many college students have been using the Internet sinceelementary school and can’t imagine life without computers and cellphones. “It’d be unthinkable,” said Clint Creasy, a 19-year-old student at New York University. “All my songs andall mydigital pictures are stored on my PC. And Pd be totally out of the loop without e-mail and IM.” “Young people can already claim to be living a digital lifestyle, keeping all their ‘digital memories,’ such as pictures, emails and music, stored on their computers,” said Amy Jo Kim. “Technology for them is a major social force. If youw’re a young person and you're not online regularly, you wind up missing out on a lot of things.” Young peoplefill much of their downtimein front of a computer screen, spending four more hours online per week than they do watching television. But it’s not just kids that are taking advantage of technology. Baby boomers are now getting in on the act, too. They are among the biggest users of digital cameras, often taking pictures and sharing them online. And free email and IM services, such as MSN Hotmail (hotmail.com), the world’s largest e-mail service with 170 million users, and MSN Mes- senger (messenger.msn.com), which handles 2.5 billion mes- sages a day, have replaced handwritten letters as the boomer’s chief way to stay in touch with children and grandchildren across the country. Youngorold, digital technology is an invaluable communication and relationship-building medium that is becoming a bigger andbigger part of people’s everydaylives.
