How Has the Internet Changed Your Life?

Way back in the dark ages before the Internet, how did people know anything? The net may be a huge time suck, but in many ways it sure does help make life simpler. For example...

• Social planning. Gone are the days of playing phone tag to plan a get together. Now just hop on Facebook or sign into your email and send out an invitation or a message with all the details and wait for everyone to respond. Same goes for class reunions. No need to make a huge production of tediously tracking classmates down when 95% of them are on Facebook or otherwise easy to track down online.
• Maps and directions. After you respond to that evite or RSVP "yes" to a Facebook event, just type the address into an online map and direction website to find out exactly where you're going, how many miles away, how long it will take you and alternate routes. 
• Shopping. You can visit a consumer product comparison website to find all kinds of information about what you're thinking about buying. One site to try is the Consumer Rankings blog. Whenever I'm considering buying something, I look for consumer product reviews and I compare prices on store and online vendor websites. I also sign up to get sale and coupon information from my favorite stores (both brick and mortar and online) emailed to me directly.
• Vacation planning. Planes, trains, and automobiles; as well as hotels, museums, amusement parks and just about everything else you might need to know while traveling. It's all online - prices, schedules, hours of operation, nearby restaurants. 
• Information for any topic. Sometimes this is a bad thing. Maybe you have heard of med student syndrome, where medical students learning about diseases suddenly feel like they have the symptoms for every disease and disorder they are studying. Well now everyone who uses the Internet has the same opportunity to scare themselves witless by looking up their symptoms online and imagining every worse case scenario. But mostly I think access to limitless information is a good thing. Not sure what to feed that frog your kids caught and brought home (surprise!)? Look it up. Wondering what the car seat laws are in a neighboring state you'll be visiting? Look it up. Need to know a definition, or what time your local pharmacy opens, or the year a book was published? Look it up!

How about you? How has the Internet made your life easier?