New to the electric guitar? Changes are you have a fairly small amp, maybe the amp contains a button for distortion. The distortion may be the only effect on the amp. For your next upgrade you may get an amp which does contain several effects. Great! Now that you have some typical guitar effects, such as distortion, chorus, flange and phase, should you not bother looking into stand-alone guitareffects? Are the effects on your amp good enough?

Typical guitaramps of today may carry some effects. Most of these effects will come in preset form, which means you do not have much control over how the effect sounds. Most stand-alone effects will let you have a choice over tone, level and degree of the effect (all depending on what kind of effect it is)

Once you get into playing with the distortion of your amp you may, at some point, find the tone of the distortion a bit limiting. It may not be able to give you the sound of your favourite band.
To overcome this issue you could try some multi-effect processors. These are boxes which carry many effects in one unit. They will let you modify the sound to whatever you would your guitar to sound like.

Stand alone stomp boxes may be easier, as they only house one effect in one box. These boxes are fairly small and simple to use. They are not only simple but very effective too: They will let you change your sound with the flick of a switch!
Once you have made your choice of what kind of stompbox you would like to have, you can compare the sound of that box to the sound of the effect on your amp. Changes are that the sound of the stompbox will be more flexable and inspiring than the sounds of the effect on your amp. Just what you need to keep you going!
Checking out several effects will also make you aware of how certain sounds are made on the guitar.
Most of the music you listen to was recorded with the use of effects, so no reason why you should not get into using them. It will open up a whole new world of possibilities for your playing.

Have fun and hope to see you soon again,
Eddie