It was reported on nytimes.com that some students had to learn the hard way that mistakes can hurt. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill informed 2,700 students by email that they had been accepted to the university. Someone pushed the send button a bit too soon. Only some of the 2,700 applicants will actually be admitted, and students won't find out until the end of March if celebrations are in order or not.
University officials said the messages were intended to be sent to people who had already been admitted to next fall's freshman class. But through a clerical error, they were sent to those still waiting for a decision as well.
Maybe if someone had been sending out 2,700 letters instead of emails, the mistake would have been caught before causing undue stress to so many people. Could it be that some forms of communication are not meant to be replaced? It's just so easy to send an email by mistake. I know I have.