Email?  What is email and how can it help you?  If you’ve not had much experience of computers, the chances are you might not know much about it.  It’s never too late to learn though, starting right now!

Email means ‘electronic’ mail.  Quite simply it’s a way of quickly sending a message from one person to another using a computer.  But what’s the point?  If you’ve spent your life doing things the traditional ‘old fashioned’ way with pen and paper you may well ask why change the habits of a lifetime.  Well how about this for a good reason?

Writing a letter from Rishton and posting it to your relatives in Canada could take a week or more.  It will probably cost you the best part of a quid to get it there, and by the time you get a reply it would be no surprise if a month passes by. 

On the other hand, by writing an email to your relative in Canada, they’ll get the message within seconds; and unless they’re really bad at responding, you could get a reply within a day or so – or even sooner if they check their emails regularly. 

And guess what?  It’s not cost you a penny – only the cost of your internet access.

That’s not the only benefit of email.  Many people find it difficult to get out of the house, especially in the winter.  So what do you do if you have an important letter that needs sending?  It’s raining outside, there’ll be a queue in the post office and by the time you’ve caught the bus to town and back your afternoon has disappeared.  The answer?  Try an email – once you’ve got the hang of it you’ll have the job done in no time - and you won’t get your feet wet!

So how do you start to use email?  Well, really it’s much like other ways of communicating: if you’re sending a letter you’ll need an address, and if you’re using the phone you’ll need a phone number.  With email, you’ll need an email address.

An email address is used by computers to direct mail to and from you, a bit like a post code might be used at a sorting office.  You may have seen them around, they look a bit like this:  joebloggs@hyndburnlife.co.uk

When spoken aloud, this sounds like “Joe Bloggs at Hyndburn Life dot co dot uk.”  This may sound a little daunting at first, but it really shouldn’t – it‘s no more complex or frightening than a phone number.

The first part, “joebloggs” might be the recipient’s name.  Then there’s the ‘@’ sign, followed by the name of the company or organisation that runs their email service.  You can get a free email address on Hyndburn Life, click here to get yours!

Once you’ve got yourself an email address, you’re all ready to get going!