The benefits of PC for me is this-
It's not so easy to walk away from this site as it is IRL from people. I don't know the magic this place holds but I've seen lots of other members under it's spell too.
To me, that's a good thing. It's good because IRL when someone blows you off-it's done. It's less likely they'll try to work things out with you.
On PC I find since it's not so easy to blow everyone off-you're going to have to deal with whatever it is that you really would rather walk away from. Whether it be one person or how things are going in general on the site.
It forces us/me to learn and grow.
You may end up being good friends with that person who made you want to never come back to PC again. You learn to adapt and compromise with others so your time here is tolerable. You learn to scream out "somebody help me" or "I'm feeling really sad" instead of whimpering away to hide alone in your room.
I like that I will come to PC even when I don't want to. You can't get me to do that IRL. If I don't want to go someplace-I don't go. PC is different like that somehow. I come in spite of not wanting to and nobody is forcing me to. But it does force me to learn and grow because of it.
PC's definetly got some kind of an addiction factor to it.