One of the major benefits of the Online world is that it can be anything that you want it to be.  You can research a wide variety of topics, participate in forums that specialize in whatever you are interested in, look up news, shop online, and do just about anything else you could ever want or need to do.  Another benefit is that it is always there for you.  Because the Internet never sleeps you have every single piece of information that you could ever hope to find at your fingertips twenty four hours a day, and there is something to be said for that.