By Gohar Galyan, 15, Marshall HS

“I always wanted to try an “online service” like America Online (AOL), but I thought there was a hidden cost somewhere. One day when I was at my friend’s house, I saw a computer disk that advertised 50 free hours of AOL and I asked her if I could have it.
It took me about half an hour to register. My mom let me type in her credit card when she knew that I could get 50 hours for free. I had used Netscape and LAUSDNET to print out science articles and read about Boyz II Men and Mariah Carey but America Online was different.
When I got there I saw a page where I could check my mail and read about the day’s news. When I closed that page, there was a main directory which alphabetically listed the main features. Some of these features were “Marketplace,” “Games,” “Music Space,” “Internet,” and “People Connection” which connects you to a room where you can chat with other people. Sometimes you get the chance to chat with celebrities and sports stars. With “Marketplace” you can shop from thousands of stores with a credit card. “Games” has a variety of live-action games that you can play. With “Music Space” you can connect to the homepages of your favorite singers and artists. You can even send your favorite celebrities mail and listen to their songs and read the lyrics. One of the best features of AOL is being able to connect to the Internet with a click of the mouse. The World Wide Web has more music and movie pages and magazines plus connections to every major university and college in the country and in the world.
When I first got on I was like, WOW. For the first few hours I “surfed” the net. I printed pictures of Chris O’Donnell and read magazines. I printed environmental articles and pamphlets for my science term paper.
After a few days I went into a chat room. On the corner of the screen you could see the list of people who were in the room. There is a big rectangle where you can read the screen name and then what the person types in. Under the big box there is a long rectangular box where you can type your comment and the rest of the people in the room can read your message. Sometimes the conversations were boring because the people were not my age.
A couple of days later one of my friends told me about the Seventeen magazine’s chat room. So the next time I went on, I clicked on keyword and I typed in Seventeen. The screen converted into a new page and there was the cover of the latest issue and horoscopes and all the features that Seventeen offers. When I entered the chat room there were about 25 other people in there. I typed in “hey everyone!” and several people typed in “hi.”
One of the people in the chat room asked for everyone’s age, sex and location and everyone in the room typed in their responses. I could see that many of the people in the chat room were from California. I asked “Zen Karma” what part of California he was from and he said he was from Torrance. We talked about music and the lastest movies that we had seen.
After hanging out in the Seventeen chat room for a few days I made friends and one evening there were about five of us in the room when Zen Karma said that we should sing. We argued for a few minutes about what to sing and finally decided to sing “Ironic” by Alanis Morrissette. Each person in the room would sing (type) one line until the song was finished. Sure we messed up and sang each other’s lines but it was fun.
A few days later I discovered another chat room which was called Teen Chat. Teen Chat had a lot more rooms and more teenagers hanging out there than in Seventeen. I remember one day I was bored in the chat room and this guy from Maryland sent me a message. He thought that the entire world should have one government and that communism was better than democracy. I didn’t agree with him but we spent an hour arguing. Another time, a vegetarian convinced me that world hunger could end if more people became vegetarian.
Talking online is just like talking on the phone but better. Sometimes the people can e-mail their photo so you can see what they look like. Acouple times I have stayed up all night just to talk to other people on the Internet!

Parental Concerns
A lot of parents worry that online services will give their kids access to pornography or perverted people. But we could just as easily be exposed to these at the supermarket or somewhere else. Your parents can install software for $20-$50 that allows them to control which sites you can access, and which ones you can’t.
One time my sister was online talking to one of her friends. My mom was sitting next to her in front of the computer when a stranger sent my sister a message saying f—- me. My mom got frustrated. But my sister ignored the message and told my mom not everyone who goes online is like that.
The online services are not just a 90s trend—they’re here to stay. They will become as widely accepted as the phone and TV.”