The blessing and curse of email

Sometimes I wonder what we ever did before email became ubiquitous. I remember having phone lists and calling trees, phoning the pack leaders to let them know about an important item or change, and calling all my den parents to remind them about the upcoming den meeting or outing. We had printed newsletters, calendars and activity handouts, which got revised frequently resulting in lots of paper thrown away or recycled.

Email has become the most important way to distribute information. What better way than to type a few lines and hit Send and have your message instantly appear for others to read?

When used properly, email is a powerful tool. Continue reading “The blessing and curse of email”

The moving target of social media

smartphone_200Back when most of us were teenagers, what we now know as “social media” consisted of long hours tying up the family telephone chatting with our friends, or perhaps time spent cruising the boulevards or at the town soda shop. Times have changed and so has the technology, and our teenagers communicate by all manner of instant electronic means.

Early commercial online chat services such as Prodigy and Compuserve eventually gave way to the king of instant messaging, America Online. It seemed like anyone who was online had an AOL account, and when Internet connectivity became widespread, so did AOL Instant Messenger. Continue reading “The moving target of social media”