New media, new conversations (with the same old people)

Let me crossblog this story from my Dutch blog, because I enjoy blogging about my daughters (apologies if it becomes boring..). My youngest (6 years) insisted on have a gmail account like her bigger sister, so we finally gave in. As soon as she had it, unlike her sister, she became an enormously active mailer, collecting mail addresses and checking replies. She asked her teachers for their email addresses and then sent them a mail talking about the noise in class and how it disturbs her. The teacher replied empathically, and asked whether she had any solutions. So she mailed grandma to ask about the situation in class in the part.

The story is illustrative on where I see the power of new media. I don't see everyone blogging (maybe they will, but I don't think they have to), but new media can make people enthusiastic by giving them new means of communicating. And it leads to a different kind of conversation. Ofcourse if all children start mailing the teacher, she may become crazy, but at least my daughter is using it creatively, and feels happy to discover new means of communication. My mother has learned to use email too. Even though I was the one trying to stop her (!) I can see she is happy. Her friends are sending around all the emotional and religious powerpoint presentation stuff ("you know a real friend by..." etc). Though it seems nonsense to me, it makes them -apparently- happy.

To be fair I should also mention all the conversations I did NOT have with my children because I was busy blogging...