MANILA, Philippines ? Online life used to be so simple. We had one e-mail account, we used only one messaging service, and Friendster was the only networking site around.

And then the boom. I don?t know when or how it exactly happened, but all of a sudden, we just became discontented with our online presence, and we turned aggressive to emphasize that we?re alive and kicking in cyberspace.

When it comes to messaging, for example, we came to a point when having just one account wasn?t enough. Whether we were subscribed to Google Talk or the ever-popular Yahoo Messenger, we found ourselves maintaining several accounts. After all, having multiple ones means several usernames to cater to our various needs or even personalities, right?

Let me explain: We use our full name for our supposedly official account; create another (where we jumble our names or even add our middle initial or name) as our backup account; create yet another (where we add a period or an underscore somewhere there) because we want an even more ?personal? account for only close friends; and create yet another (where we add some significant numbers, like a lucky basketball team number or our ?monthsary?) for very ?personal? use since our significant other knows the passwords to our other accounts. And oh, we never forget to create one with seemingly random numbers and apt descriptions of ourselves (hotchinit0, gothicgirlx0x0, gymb0y), which we reserve for chatting up strangers (or potential other halves, if you want to be positive).

Oh, and these are just for one messaging service. Because there are others out there, and we feel compelled to connect with all our friends and business contacts, we sign up with other services as well. Skype, for example, seems to be the best free voice chat service around, so we can?t just ignore that, and we end up creating at least one account there.

E-mail

And then there are the e-mail accounts.

From all the available ones out there, we normally pick just one to use for correspondence. But since they differ in styles?Gmail, for example, has bigger fonts and is more pleasing to the eyes because of its cleanliness, while Yahoo! Mail has user-friendly features like unlimited storage?choosing only one can be a toughie, which more often than not leads to the creation of multiple accounts. This brings forth some complications, as we all know by now, when it comes to things like the creation of a password (What password for which account? I need to change an account?s password, now I need to change the others? as well so I won?t get confused or forget it), giving out e-mail addresses (Which e-mail address for who? My 12 e-mail addresses won?t fit on my business card), building a directory (I just edited my contacts list in Yahoo! Mail, but I use Gmail more so I guess I have to edit that as well), and checking messages (Which should I check first? I don?t have time to check all five accounts right now. I haven?t checked one account for the longest time and it might get deleted).

Some people use their e-mail accounts as storage space too, so even if you are an avid fan of Gmail, if you want to use your e-mail account as storage space, you might want to do it using your Yahoo! Mail account because of its unlimited storage space.

Photos

For photo enthusiasts, cyberspace is the perfect storeroom. With all the photo storage/sharing sites available, it would seem like freeing up your computer?s hard disk is no sweat. And you have a lot to choose from?Picasa, Flickr, Photobucket, Multiply?but they each have their own drawbacks, especially if you?re using just the free account. Usually, the biggest problem is limited storage (you can always create multiple accounts though), and then other setbacks include not being able to download folders (just individual files, which can take forever), or not being able to retain your photos? original size. So before you transfer all your beloved photos to a particular site, make sure you have chosen the best one, because you might end up unsatisfied, and be forced to download them to your computer just so you can upload them again somewhere else.

And what about blogs? The choices, as usual, are many: Live Journal, Typepad, Blogger (everyone?s fave), and the new hit, WordPress. Thankfully, there is the option for us to cross-post, if we really want to maintain several blogs from various blog hosts. A possible problem though is how it?s so tempting to hop from one blogging service to another, due to dissatisfaction, limitations (not enough nice themes, for example) or plain boredom.

Lastly, there are the social networking sites. Do you remember the days when we felt so conflicted between Friendster and MySpace? Now there?s also Multiply, Facebook and a dozen others. Sure, we can subscribe to just one, but signing up to all of them would make us feel even more alive, right? They are fun and entertaining-and they demand a lot of our time and attention for very important things like changing one?s status, uploading our latest pics, and accepting (or rejecting) friend requests. Oh, how they truly keep us in touch with others, but how they turn us anti-social as well.

More than ever, it seems like we?re spending a big chunk of our day online?to be in the know, to be known. And while most of us log on for work, it is so easy to get sidetracked and just chat, surf or tweet away. Technology might have advanced the way we connect, work or spend our free time, but it?s just sad and at the same time scary how our life seems to now revolve around the worldwide web.

More time online? E-mail the author at ninomarksablan@yahoo.com