(FORTUNE Magazine) – I remember the first time I saw America Online. I was 9 years old, and my dad (who wrote the cover story) told me that the twins who played Michelle on Full House, one of my favorite TV shows, were going to be in a live chat. I was so excited to talk to real live celebs. I loved it and demanded my own screen name. That's how SareyBeary@aol.com was born.

That was four years ago. Now almost all my friends have AOL. Sometimes I do homework on the Internet, using a search engine, but mostly I use AOL to talk to friends through E-mails and Instant Messages. Even my grandma sends me E-mails. My few friends who don't have AOL constantly nag their parents to switch over from Erol's or Worldnet.

I probably go on AOL about twice a day. My friends and I usually go on right after we get home from school and again after dinner. That's when you can find the most people online. Buddy Lists are really cool, because they tell you which friends are on. (I keep track of 47 buddies on my list. It pops up on the right-hand side of the screen as soon as I log on.) I usually read my mail while IM-ing people, then go to a private chat room with a few friends. You can carry on lots of conversations at once. Once I was in a room with 24 people from the eighth grade at my school! Usually we're on the phone, too, maybe listening to music or doing homework. But AOL is better than the telephone, because you can talk to as many people as you want. Also, you can save conversations, which is nice when you want to remember something.

I used to visit lots of different AOL sites, like MTV, but I hardly ever do that anymore. Recently I had some friends overnight, and we logged on to the Seventeen magazine site. We found the celebrity address book and each wrote three letters to Jared Leto! We haven't heard back from him yet. I did get signed pictures from Oprah and David Schwimmer after writing to them.

AOL can get really annoying at times. I often get busy signals, especially around 8 P.M. Sometimes I'll randomly get signed off when I'm in the middle of something. And it can be really slow when you are using the Net or downloading.

Late one night I was bored, so I decided to make a home page. AOL Personal Publisher takes you through the process step by step. It was easy. My friends go there regularly, and I update it every few weeks. I've gotten over 600 hits! It mostly has stuff that teenage girls would be interested in. I have shrines to Jakob Dylan and Leonardo DiCaprio, moving pictures, and links. You can visit at http://members.aol.com/SareyBeary/index. html. See you online!