The internet has had a profound approach on nearly every aspect of our lives. What started out (for the average person) as a means for sending messages, chatting with others, and playing games, has turned into a 24 hour research source, a way to pay bills, shop, and conduct business, as well as an instant delivery service for a wide variety of direct to user content from advertising to streaming favorite television shows.

When I think about how much time I spend in front of the computer on an average day... well, I really try not to think about it. (Thank goodness for my garden!) So much technology has evolved or come into being since 2009 when I posted the article, How I Use the Internet. Back then I said I mostly used the internet for correspondence and research. Of course, that was before the boom of social media...

How I use the Internet

At the time I first ventured onto the internet I didn't know very much about it let alone the potential of what it could be used for. I had seen journalists in movies and on television accessing some kind of massive computer library of information and I assumed the internet functioned much like that.

When I first discovered the internet I did not have access to it at my home, or even my own internet ready computer, for that matter. I think I first learned about it through a friend whose husband did some kind of work. They had internet service in their home and she was always on it, usually visiting the chat rooms. It was an outlet for her because at the time she was a stay at home mom.

A short time later I started out using the internet at my mother's house and in the beginning I would visit chat rooms and occasionally look up information. There was not nearly the amount of online resources then as there are today, but it was new and fun and because I had my own screen name on my mom's AOL account I was able to receive email.

Once I started to learn how to navigate around the Internet Super Highway I also learned how to download and save documents for future reference. The best thing about it was that when you wanted to do research you could do it at any hour of the day, unlike visiting the local library. Back then it was all via dial up service using your home telephone.

When I was able to start accessing the internet from home I would spend hours on it looking up all sorts of information on how to do things. At times I would not have the budget to go out and buy books and the internet was a valuable twenty-four hour resource for learning new information from a variety of sources I would not have been able to access otherwise.

Over the years I have gotten away from visiting the chat rooms. I ventured into the sphere of online dating briefly without success and I delved into some of the early social networking sites. I visited online game rooms and did a little shopping. During the time I didn't have a car being able to shop online made a huge difference in my ability to get the things that I needed.

At one point time I spent a lot of time on email reward programs like My Points and Bonus Mail (which are now merged into one program) as well as a couple of programs that no longer exist like Freeride. Those programs made a significant impact in my getting to go out during periods when I wasn't working via the gift cards and movie passes I earned.

Today a lot of things have changed. Now I mainly use the internet for email correspondence and I still spend quite a lot of time researching information. I occasionally play games and do a little shopping and I am the organizer for a meetup group. Recently I have been spending more and more time with passive income writing sites and I am trying to carve out some time to develop my blogs. I check my email multiple times per day and just I can not imagine my life without the internet.

Let me live, love and say it well in good sentences. Those are the words of Silvia Plath and the inspiration for this "new direction" blog, which for the time being at least, will become the new home of the bulk of my more than 300+ articles now residing on the soon to be nonexistent Helium web site.

Naming a new blog is no easy task. What you may think of as a clever or appropriate name for your blog is quite often not going to be available once you finally get started. I've learned the easiest way to name a new blog is think of a phrase that goes with your theme and find a way to turn it into a usable title.

After several failed attempts at naming one of my previous blogs it was through a quote from Mikhail Baryshnikov that I finally arrived at To Dance Better Than Myself. This time though, the theme wasn't as cut and dry so it was more difficult to try and come up with a name. This blog is meant to be home to my writing, yet it's not a writing blog. It's not an ezine either, or a virtual archive, 

Once the articles have all been migrated, it's most likely that subsequent posts will be primarily OpEd in nature, though perhaps I'll be inspired to continue to create new articles in some of the topics I've covered in education or general How-To.

At any rate, Crafting A New Direction, can be daunting, tedious, and even time consuming. It occasionally happens in bursts as opposed to consistent ongoing periods, as you sometimes have to put your energies in other directions. Helium shuts down for good in 6 months. If I can transfer three articles per day, I'll be done in just over 100 days. It's more likely I will push do to as many as possible and then get a few more in here and there.

For a long time Helium was seen by many as being on a level above the internet content mills, but over time it became less and less profitable for experienced writers to post new content there. Other sites have come and gone as well, but as the ease of self publishing grows perhaps more and more writers will find it easier to create their own opportunities.

With four down and well over 300 to go, it may be a while before I produce any new content, but not long ago I did a guest blog post, and I've promised to review a dating book, so you never know what might turn up in this space in the future.

Stay tuned...