As the world’s online population nears three-quarters of a billion people, the feeling of small community still prevails. After all, when you surf the Net, you really don’t think about exposing yourself to that many people; you just chat with your own small community of baseball fans, cigar smokers, or PC builders, as your interests lead.

Unlike years ago, when Internet chat only occurred on online “bulletin boards,” chatters today have a variety of options — social chat rooms, celebrity chat sessions, and instant messaging, to name a few. Each of these has its own advantages and drawbacks. Instant messaging, for example, offers spontaneous conversation and is a lot cheaper than a phone call. It even lets you change background colors with your tone of conversation. In fact, instant messaging might replace regular email altogether if not for one distinct problem: it’s too hard to end the conversation. I’ve been involved in many IMs that went far beyond their usefulness just because I’m too nice a guy to say “Listen, I know you don’t want to hear this, but this conversation has run its course and is now officially over.” I just can’t say that. I even feel guilty about writing it in this column for fear that someone I’ve IM’ed with will read it and think I’m talking about them. To get out of the chat, I usually end up lying about having to get off the computer to run some errand. That usually works, but then I have to actually log off my account or the other person will see that my status is still “logged on” and will think I was lying to them just to get out of the chat. Which, of course, I was. Then I end up resenting the person for controlling my computer habits, even though it was my own gutlessness that caused the problem to begin with. (As I write this, I’m pretty sure I’ll never IM anyone ever again.)

Another drawback of Internet chat is the lack of attention to spelling, grammar, and punctuation. This is particularly tough for me to accept because as an English major I assign undue importance to the proper use of language. I’m the irritating guy who stops people in mid-sentence to correct their English and can’t figure out why they don’t appreciate it. (Not that I enjoy it. It’s just my way of showing that I’m hacked off at myself for not majoring in Computer Science.) With Internet chat, the idea is to type your thoughts as quickly as possible so as to simulate a verbal conversation. Because we don’t type as fast as we speak, it’s become common practice (in vogue, even) to make up time by not pressing the Shift key to capitalize, and not figuring out where the commas and apostrophes go. This is acceptable under the assumption that the person with whom you’re chatting will know what you meant anyway, an assumption that grows more optimistic as the evening progresses and additional alcohol is consumed. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, consider yourself fortunate.

Celebrity chat is a new form of Internet correspondence. Apparently, there are a lot of lonely celebrities who are just dying to chat with the likes of you and me. I recently saw a link on a major portal that said “Charlize Theron wants to chat with you.” Though I cleverly deduced this as a publicity stunt, for a split-second I admit to thinking that Charlize had finally come to her senses.

Most of the celebrity chats I follow involve retired sports figures who log on to ESPN or CBS Sportsline each week just to field questions from sycophants like me. It’s never the young athletes because they either don’t need the aggravation or they’re too busy defending themselves in court. The retired guys have plenty of time and they seem to get a kick out of the chat names that people make up: Mets_Fan, Petey_Pete, and Gonna_Kill_Somebody, to name a few.

Chatting on the Internet will remain a viable activity for a few more years until Voice Over IP takes over. Until then, you should do your part to keep the chat going. You might even see me out there.

But take care: if you try to IM me, you’re doing so at your own risk.