A WHOLE NEW ON-LINE WORLD : WITH THE INTERNET EXPLODING ALL OVER, MILLIONS NOW LOOKING TO HITCH A RIDE.

Byline: Elizabeth R. Cosin Daily News Staff Writer

When Jim Etchison moved here from Colorado eight months ago, he faced the same problems as any newcomer.

Recently divorced, the free-lance writer relocated to be closer to his two small children. Despite having been raised in Los Angeles, Etchison found his old friends married or gone. Meeting new ones and going back out into the dating world aren't easy.

But Etchison has become a social butterfly, a firmly ensconced member of a clique of friends that number in the dozens and that he can count on for conversation, companionship and support at almost any time of the day or night.

He never had to leave home to do it.

Etchison's new community is a cyber one, that is, a group of people who meet and communicate from their personal computers.

``It's been a lifesaver for me,'' says the 34-year-old Montrose resident. ``I really had no friends here, no one to talk to and I didn't want to just go out to meet people. Now I have a whole bunch of friends. I even got a job through my on-line contacts, a very good job. It has just been great.''

Emi Santos also understands the positive effects a computer can have as a way to communicate. The 22-year-old was partially paralyzed in a devastating auto accident two years ago. Her parents bought a computer to help her deal with the long hours of recovery, and she has become an integral part of one of the Valley's cyber villages.

Santos still goes out with her old friends, but through her contacts in cyberspace, she has met scores more, including her current boyfriend. Nearly every Monday she is part of a group of 30 to 80 people who cram into B.B. King's restaurant at Universal CityWalk. They all met in a ``chat room'' on America Online that was set up for people who lived in the San Fernando Valley. Last Monday, the group celebrated its first anniversary.

``One of the reasons I got the computer was that a friend of my mother's had heard about the support groups that AOL (America Online) has. They have been very helpful for me,'' said Santos of Sun Valley. ``I spend a lot of time on line talking with friends and meeting new people, surfing the Web. I'm hooked, I guess.''

Two years ago, when Etchison and Santos began to dabble on the Internet, they were practically pioneers as far as the average American is concerned. These days, they are members of one of the fastest-growing groups in America.

The growth is so rapid, in fact, that figures become outdated before they are even published.

A survey by an Austin, Texas, research firm estimates more than 26 million people worldwide are accessing the Internet either directly or through on-line services such as AOL and CompuServe.

Internet use has exploded since the late 1980s, growing 100 percent a year since 1988. And it has doubled in size each year, according to figures from Matrix Information and Directory Services. Men outnumber women 2-1, according to the survey.

On-line services, in particular, are drawing new users in droves, in large part because of their user-friendly features, easy access, free initial hours and built-in help functions.

AOL tops what is becoming a huge heap of on-line providers and services. AOL has more than 5 million users.

But all is not smooth surfing. With every new computer sold and every new on-line subscription, the realities of the latest brave new world can turn out to be a frustrating maze of alphabet soup, complex lingo and technical mumbo-jumbo that makes setting the VCR seem like an easy job.

While computer-ready households have increased dramatically, so have calls to technical help lines, creating a whole new industry of companies that hire and train help staffs.

Even the help becomes outdated quickly as computers and computer programs upgrade and improve at the speed of light, making books, videos and manuals useless as soon as they hit the shelves.

``We have only been teaching this as a discipline for a couple of years now,'' said California State University, Northridge, associate professor Lucy Parakhovnik. She said keeping up to date for her classes on the Internet is a daily job. ``Even the books I use don't have the latest information. It's the kind of thing where the teachers are learning just ahead of the students. And even that isn't always so. My students sometimes know much more than I do.''

However confusing, the Internet is becoming a part of everyday life. Thousands of companies, from networks to publishers to automakers, have their own places called ``home pages'' on the World Wide Web, which is the more popular part of the global network, the Internet.

Jim Etchison's home page includes a photo of his two children, Ryan and Camille.

``It's been pretty good therapy,'' he said. ``You know there have been a lot of negative things said about the Internet. And with every show like (NBC-TV's Monday night movie) `The Deadly Web,' people get scared of it. But in all the time I've been on line, I've rarely heard of any problems.''

Even Etchison, who considers himself a fairly able techie, has run into snagsconfiguring this or setting up that.

``I didn't know a thing about computers,'' said Santos, who said she spent her first 10 free hours and more on line just learning how to navigate. ``I think that's why they give you the free hours, so you can figure out all that stuff. It can be very frustrating.''

So for those of you out there thinking of joining the computer revolution or staring at a $3,000 typewriter wondering why you did, the Daily News offers a mini-tour of the basics of the Internet. Afterward, we're hope you'll be able to distinguish between a baud and a browser, a gateway and a GIF.

CAPTION(S):

Drawing, Photo, Box

Drawing: (Cover--Color) UNTANGLING THE WEB

Alow-technie's guide to the Internet

Jon Gerung/Daily News

Photo: Instructor Lucy Parker helps student Ahmad Nooristani navigate the Internet in the computer lab at California State University, Northridge. The number of users on the global computer network is doubling every year and many are finding new, virtual communities in their on-line travels.

John McCoy/Daily News

Box: Americans on line

Knight-Ridder Tribune Graphics Network