I’VE always enjoyed filling our home with family guests, but when a special event brought together our extended clan recently, a new wrinkle emerged.

“Do you mind,” one in-law asked, as I rounded up bedding and fretted over having enough milk in the fridge to fill 12 cereal bowls in the morning, “if I just pop onto the computer and check my e-mail?”

“Oh, yeah,” remarked another. “Maybe I could just track my son’s flight from D.C.”

“Ooh, perhaps you could print something out for me ...”

That was my first inkling of how the vastly expanded electronic and informational needs of houseguests would flavor our time together. Soon guests were positioning themselves to get dibs on one of the three computers in our Long Island house the way they would otherwise line up to jump in the shower.