Author: Andy Affleck

Chained

Published on by Andy Affleck

I haven’t gotten a chain letter in quite some time. I think I have managed to train most people around me that they are usually flat out wrong (or at very best, wildly outdated) and, if nothing else, sending them to me means that I will take the time to debunk them and will reply telling the sender that and a small diatribe on the evils of chain letters. I figure most people have either learned not to forward them at all or, more likely, to avoid sending them to me.

So, imagine my surprise when I received one late last night about how illegal immigrants are costing this country more than the Iraq war has and blames our economic woes on them. That was too good to pass up. It only took me about 3 minutes of searching while sitting in Panera this morning to find a good debuking of the entire email and send it along.

I hope I was nice about it. I’ve long known that being a jerk to people about chain letters makes them ignore the fact that you just debunked their screed and just get mad at me for being a jerk. So I am very nice about it, usually ending with a statement about being cranky when I get chain mail or some such.

But to me, the biggest revelation of this little event is how infrequently I get chain letters. It took receiving one to realize how long it’s been since I last got one. So, that’s an improvement!

Now, I have to go forward this email to ten friends so I can win a million dollars next week. Drinks are on me!

Children and Social Media Revisited

Published on by Andy Affleck

A blog post from last summer that was turned into an article in TidBITS last fall has now been quoted in an NPR article examining the subject of children and social media. When I told Jack he was going to be mentioned in a National Public Radio article his eyes widened and he said, “National?” and then did a little dance.

One point I did not make clearly in my comments to the author of the article and that I did not really make in my own writing is that the one thing I do not want to do is teach him to lie to get around the rules. He’ll learn that cynical lesson in his own time. As things stand now, he does not have a Facebook account nor does he need one. When he’s older he can have one. For now, there’s plenty of other things both online and outside he can experience.