Online support

INTERNET: Before the recession, playing online games or visiting sites like Facebook might have been something for a free moment at work. These days, many people are spending more time on the internet because they have lost their jobs.

For some, this means searching for work. But games and online social networking sites also provide welcome relief from the fear and loneliness of being jobless.

Julia Otto of New Orleans lost her job in November. Now the 43-year-old is looking for a new one. But she also spends several hours a day playing games on the website Big Fish Games, at a cost of $7 a month. “They’re an affordable way to help forget,” Otto told The Wall Street Journal. “It’s not soap opera and chocolates.”

Canadian Sylvain Henry from Gatineau, Quebec, started a Facebook group called Recession Survivors in October after he lost his sales job at a software company in Montreal. At first, Henry said, the members of the group mainly complained about their situation. So Henry decided to give useful tips on how to save money. Soon other members added their own ideas.

"I don't want to hear complaints all the time," says Sylvain Henry of Recession Survivors.

“I don’t just want to hear complaints all the time,” Henry told The Globe and Mail. “I want them to transform their complaining energy into productive energy.”

One person who says she has benefited from the site is Doris Shewchuk of Thunder Bay, Ontario. After two serious car accidents, she is no longer able to work fulltime. But finding a part-time job is not easy. Talking to others in the group has improved the 55-year-old’s outlook on life. “You get to talk with different people and you realize you’re not alone. You can talk about your fears. You can ask, ‘Well, what do you think?’ You kind of take your power back.”

Meanwhile, the recession has had a positive impact on the online game industry. The number of visitors to these sites rose 29.9 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to comScore Inc. Big Fish Games has seen a 70 per cent increase in revenues, to $85 million in 2008. The Seattle-based company now has over 30 job openings.