Isn’t life in the digital age wonderful? I find by the time I update my two blogs, transfer pictures onto the computer from the camera, answer my emails and check my favourite websites, there goes the night. I find I now spend more time in front of the computer than the television. I have simply swapped one sight-ruining box for another.

Social commentators used to spend columns of space writing about the dangers of television. It was supposed to tear at the fabric of families, and ultimately society.

How can families possibly be relating properly if they are sitting in front of the gogglebox all night? Well at least we all sat around the gogglebox together and occasionally even laughed at the same time.

In contrast, using computers is a fairly solitary task. I’ve never heard of the family logging onto You Tube, for example, and having a laugh at the latest Chad Vader episode (check them out - they are so funny. Chad, as opposed to Darth, actually works in a grocery store, but I digress).

Music used to be something to be shared as well. Now with the i-pod generation, music is a case of plugging in and tuning out.

For our little kids, perhaps the same will become of television. Everyone will have their own personal monitor and it will be so interactive there’ll be no such thing as the 8.30pm Sunday movie. It’ll be the anytime-you-want-it movie, from any camera angle you want.

It’s not all negative though. I find that with my blogs and the uploading of my photos onto share sites, such as Flickr.com, at least those members of the family who don’t live near you, can get a sense of what you’re up to. How else would my son’s Aunty is Canada know, for example, that he just saw King Kong on the weekend?

So we all get to know things about people we never needed to know. And as for the stuff, we need to know? I’ve just got to write one more post, answer three emails, contribute to an online forum, and edit the Christmas pics (in particular reducing the size of my nose and chin), and then we can talk, ok?