I love Twitter. It's usually the first thing I look at when I arrive at my desk in a morning, and one of the last things I look at before closing the laptop in the evening. But during any sort of controversial or tragic news story, Twitter becomes one, giant pain in the neck. What's the biggest pain? It's not the we-haven't-noticed-people-are-dying-we're-just-using-the-hashtag-to-sell-shoes Tweets. It's not even the Britain-is-broken-surely-it's-time-to-get-rid-of-Islam … [Read more...]

As parents and writers, we are raising the first generation of people who could see their entire lives recorded online. With the rise of Facebook, parent blogs, Twitter and a thousand other websites, our children's lives are mapped online virtually from the moment of conception, in some cases. There's the scan photo on Facebook, the cute video announcing the baby's sex via cakes or balloons, the live-Tweeting of the birth, the toilet training stories, first day at school, and it goes on and … [Read more...]

Apparently, Candy Crush is the most popular game on Facebook, with 9.7m people playing the game each day. I'm not surprised - I keep seeing mentions among bloggers of the game, and every time I log into Facebook, I'm accosted by half a dozen updates from friends who are inviting me to play. So, for a couple of weeks, I added the game, and played. I can see what people like about Candy Crush. It's cute, and simple to understand, and accessible. It's social, too - you can gloat as you pass … [Read more...]

If a picture speaks a thousand words, then a GIF speaks - well, probably a bit more than a thousand. A thousand and two, at least. If you're a Tumblr user (check out the Tots100's guide to Tumblr for beginners if you're not!) then you'll be familiar with GIFs - animated images that are used to express a quick thought or capture a memorable moment. They're ALL over the Internet. Approximately 50% of GIFs feature cats. Or people falling over. Like this one, which is never NOT funny to me: … [Read more...]

I've been thinking about love lately. As you do. Specifically I've been thinking about why so many women get sucked into the notion that True Love - the sort with capital letters and everything - should be hard work. That the more tears are shed, and sleepless nights wasted, the better. Should love hurt? If we look at books and movies and TV, it's not a sunny outlook. Love's a bitch, isn't it? And usually, the ones being bitch-slapped by Love are women. Take Bella and Edward. Or … [Read more...]

"Daisy chaining is a popular activity among kids today."  It's not every day someone says that, is it? So I was a little bit taken aback when Dr Tanya Byron told us about daisy chaining, as part of a keynote presentation at the Drinkaware Annual Conference last week, where I was a speaker along with Carrie from Mumsnet and child behaviour expert Eileen Hayes. And Tanya definitely wasn't talking about flowers. Don't Google it - especially if you're at work right now - but … [Read more...]

Sometimes, it doesn't matter how long you spend thinking about something, it refuses to make sense. Like, are two radio DJs morally responsible for the death of a nurse who was involved in a prank call they made? It has to be said, any death is a tragedy for the people involved, and close to the deceased. That's a given. But prank calls have been happening for as long as there have been phones, including prank calls to royals and other public figures - anyone remember the time the Queen … [Read more...]