It can be very handy, but I think I associate it with "work" too much and sometimes forget that sitting around giggling about funny names for cats isn't any less of a time waster if you do it online instead of at the water cooler.
Not that there's anything wrong with hanging out with friends. Humans are social creatures and the internet has definitely "levelled the playing field" for us bookish types who find it easier to communicate in print than by speaking and it's a godsend for those of us who are not conventionally attractive or otherwise are not the stereotypes that IRL people tend to slap on us before dismissing us and tuning us out.
Nobody would ever ask a fifty year old menopausal woman with visibly missing teeth for technical advice, but they sure do flock to "butterflyzRfree123*" because "he" knows and loves GNU/Linux and they don't need to know that "he" is me.
*not my real fake name
