Does anyone but me get annoyed when you're faced with the possibility of future communication and the people you need to communicate with don't have email?

I am the membership director for a couple of mediation organizations and often I need to communicate with my members about upcoming events. Most of the people have email and I can just compose the message, hit the 'send' button and I'm good to go.

But there are a surprising number of people in both groups that don't have email. Because they don't choose to be a part of the 21st century, I have to take my valuable time and convert the message to paper, stuff, lick, stamp and mail their meeting announcements via snail mail. Each time this happens, I find myself getting put out with the non-email types, thinking, how stone age can you get??? Not having email in this day and age.

But according to a new study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 42 percent of American adults say they are not connected to the Internet, and a surprising number live in a household where other relatives are regular Internet users, or they have close friends who regularly go online. Yet they refuse to join the crowd.

Of those who do not use the Internet, the study found, 74 percent have relatives or close friends who do. And 20 percent of the nonusers are what the study calls Net evaders: people living in Internet-connected homes where other relatives go online.

The Net evaders have their reasons for remaining offline. Some are short on free time and fear that it will take over their lives - that once they take the plunge, they will never resurface. Others simply prefer to send and receive handwritten correspondence. Still others lament the loss of face-to-face contact associated with the rise of the Web. A few confess to ignorance and intimidation. And there are those who manage, through wired surrogates, to take advantage of the Internet indirectly for research or communication.

Now I can imagine the fear of the net taking over my life. In fact, I was urged by a friend some time ago to respond and make comments on his weblog, and I told him that I had resisted doing that because once I took the plunge I'd be hooked and soon he'd find me in a gutter somewhere, having lost my home and hearth because I was too busy commenting on weblogs to hold down a job.

That, in fact, hasn't happened and I'm proud to say that I can show restraint. And while I can understand the Net Evaders worrying about their precious time, I just wish they'd be a little more benevolent and worry about my precious time and the time it takes for me to provide them with their precious handwritten correspondence!