Welcome Billy,
Your parents statement about so many coming in does jive with the numbers. If you consider the average number of publishers, there has been no growth in 22 of the developed countries in the last three years. The only growth is in the underdeveloped, noninternet connected, countries. Global increase is only 1/2 of 1% higher than the population increase. If you want to read more on this, you can go to search at the top of the page and scan on the word "decline" for the lengthy thread called "JW Decline"
Also, if you would like to read more of our stories, you can go to the "Hello, Hello" thread, if you already haven't done so.