I’ve been cautious about the risks from cell phone radiation since we first started reporting on the topic back in 2008. But a passionate call from Devra Davis, PhD, MPH, founder and president of Environmental Health Trust and author of Disconnect: The Truth About Cell Phone Radiation, What the Industry Has Done to Hide It and How to Protect Your Family has prompted me to get the word out even stronger.

After months of resisting, I finally bit the bullet and got myself a "smart phone." What pushed me over the edge was synching problems between a series of PDA (personal digital assistant) devices and my office computer that caused events to get dropped from my handheld calendar. With so many meetings, this was a big problem.

My children "discovered" YouTube (the popular, free video-sharing Web site) a long time ago, but I've only recently come to use and enjoy it. The exuberant performance of Do Re Mi at a railroad station in Belgium perks everyone up. A Scottish bicyclist's tricks are truly awesome. The Cimorellis' video -- one brother and five sisters singing in glorious harmony -- is a family favorite. And Susan Boyle's singing debut on Britain's Got Talent continues to inspire. It was YouTube's most-watched video in 2009.

My husband and I have been opining the decline of good English, hastened by the prevalence of text messaging. When I first started using the text feature on my cell phone, I always composed my texts like a letter -- starting with a salutation, spelling out every word in the message, and even signing my name. For expediency, my children's habits have rubbed off on me. I've started abbreviating and dropped the formal niceties of a greeting or signature. It didn't bother me that I'd succumbed until my children started to speak in Text, saying "TTYL" ("talk to you later") instead of using real words when they leave a room... or "LOL" (laugh out loud) instead of enjoying a good hearty giggle. While we keep quiet when they use such lingo with their friends or even when texting to us, we've insisted that they speak to us using proper language rather than in code.

I don't go looking for typographical errors... they find me. I see them in everything I read, from text messages and e-mails (the worst offenders) to newspapers, magazines, Web sites, product labels and books -- places where even professional proofreaders are messing up.