“Jamie Seetho doesn't turn on the television when she gets home from work. She turns on her computer and gets on the Internet.

"When I do get bored, I don't turn on the TV," the 24-year-old from San Francisco said. "I go onto Friendster, or read the news or see who's online to chat."

More than ever, she and others are getting on the Internet to hang out or just blow off some time, a study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project said Wednesday. Some 40 million Americans said they go online just for fun, up from 25 million the year before, the first big jump in about five years since the Washington group began studying the phenomenon.

The study's results, experts say, underscore how the Web has increasingly become a part of our lives and has become not just a place to find information, but also a means of entertainment, rivaling television.

"The Internet is a destination," said Deborah Fallows, a Pew senior research fellow who wrote the report. "It's some place to see what's going on, to hang out, to find new things. You go there with the expectation that there is something interesting happening and you'll be informed or entertained just by going there."


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