After too long on the Net, even a phone call can be a shock. My boyfriend’s Liverpudlian accent suddenly becomes difficult to understand after the (S1) of his words on screen; a secretary’s tone seems more rejecting than I’d (S2) it would be. Time itself becomes fluid-hours become minutes, and alternately seconds stretch into days. Weekends, once a (S3) of my week, are now just two ordinary days. For the last three years, since I stopped working as a (S4) for Charlie Rose, I have done much of my work as a telecommuter. I submit articles and edit them via E-mail and (S5) with colleagues on Internet mailing lists. My boyfriend lives in England; so much of our relationship is (S6) . If I desired, I could stay inside for weeks without wanting anything. I can order food, and (S7) my money, love and work. In fact, at times I have spent as long as three weeks alone at home,going out only to get mail and buy newspapers and groceries. I watched most of the blizzard of ’96 on TV.(S8) . I start to feel as though I’ve merged with my machines, taking data in, spitting them back out, just another mode on the Net. Other on line reports the same symptoms. We start to strongly dislike the outside forms of socializing. It’s like attending an A. A. meeting in a bar with everyone holding a half- sipped drink. We have become the Net opponents’ worst nightmare. What first seemed like a luxury, crawling from bed to computer, not worrying about hair, and clothes and face, has become an avoidance, a lack of discipline. (S9) ,coming back out of the cave can be quite difficult. (S10) . The voices of the programs soothe me,but then I’m jarred by’the commercials. I find myself sucked in by soap operas, or compulsively needing to keep up with the latest news and the weather. "Dateline", "Frontline", "Nightline", CNN, New York 1,every possible angle of every story over and over and over, even when they are of no possible use to us . Work moves from foreground to background. S5