Britain is email mad! According to a survey carried out earlier this year by a UK-based internet-measuring company, in January 2002, UK homes sent and received 550 million emails but only 258 million letters. That is 170 million more emails than the French and 185 million more than German families! With the postal service in disarray, it would seem that email is the answer!

But does email have disadvantages too? It is all too easy to forward an email in a few seconds, without thinking of the consequences - or to even send it to the wrong person! Remember the British special adviser, Jo Moore and her email about September 11th being a good day to bury bad news? Can the security of email be assured and do you know who is reading or leaking yours? The security of a letter sealed with adhesive tape is assured as even the Security Services are unable to open it, without the letter revealing it has been tampered with.

• What are the practical advantages and disadvantages of electronic mail?

• How secure are your emails? Who is reading them?

• Is it harder to offend people in a written letter?

• Do companies have the right to scan their employees' emails even though they provide the facility?

• Which annoys you most - junk mail or junk emails?

• Which do you prefer - a crisp white envelope or that little sound your PC makes to indicate that you have mail?

• Can an email ever be as romantic as a handwritten love letter?

• Can you see a time when mail deliveries will cease completely and postmen become a faded memory?

• Are there somethings for which a letter is the best option? Will wedding invitations always be 'stiffies' rather then emails?

• Conversely, what sort of things are best handled by email?

• Will emails be saved in the same way as letters are? Will we ever see books of the collected emails sit alongside the Collected Letters of CS Lewis?