How young is too young to get an email address?

My six-year-old niece, Kendall, has a Gmail account.

I'm not sure how I feel about this: On one hand, I think she's too young to have an email account because it symbolizes how fast she's growing up. But on the other, she is growing up and getting an email address is just a part of life.

Kendall, who will be seven next month, just got the account yesterday. My younger sister, who is not Kendall's mother, set it up after Kendall told her a child's website was asking for her email address. My niece didn't even know what an email address was before yesterday.

I couldn't find any data about six-year-olds with email addresses, but according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which tracks Internet use, 87 percent of 12-17-year-olds have an email account. That percentage is higher than any age group up to 90-year-olds. And there are websites out there just for kids who want email addresses. A popular one is Kids Online (KOL), which is AOL for kids.

I don't want my niece to grow up too fast, but at the same time I don't want her to get left behind the technology boom. Technology is everywhere - cell phones with Internet capability and cameras; GPS devices, cars that park themselves. Everything is quick and convenient these days.

It shouldn't amaze me that Kendall knows how to use a computer, but it does. She's been using them at school for a couple of years now and uses her parents' at home. She knows how to turn it on and type in a handful of web addresses - all kid friendly, of course.

She's also into texting, which blows my mind. When I saw her over the July 4th weekend, she grabbed my BlackBerry Curve and asked if she could send a text. We sent one to my younger sister, who was in route to Memphis for the holiday weekend. "This is Kendall," she texted. "Hurry up and get here :)." Her little fingers slowly finding the letters on the keyboard made me laugh. She certainly wouldn't win a texting contest.

Even though I'm on the fence about Kendall having an email address, I'm looking forward to my first email from her. We recently became pen pals after she complained that mommy and daddy get mail everyday and she doesn't. We've been writing each other letters every week since May. I look forward to getting the short notes written in second-grade handwriting with a drawing that always made me smile.

Maybe that's what's bothering me: I'm afraid Kendall will stop writing letters and only send emails. Emails can be impersonal. No penmanship. No drawings. And if she eventually reverts to only emails, I will miss running my hand over the heart or animal she drew just for me. I won't have anything to hang on my frig.

Hopefully, I can have it both ways - occasionally, we'll send an email, but the weekly letters will continue for life.