Advice Column

An advice column is a column in a magazine or newspaper written by an advice columnist (colloquially known in British English as an 'agony aunt', or 'agony uncle' if the columnist is male). An advice columnist can also be someone who gives advice to people who send in problems to the newspaper.

Many advice columns appear in newspapers, magazines and on the internet, and offering advice concerning daily life, such as education, machines, computers, marriage, kids and also students. They provide columns such as "Dear Abby" , "Ann Landers advices you", Carolyn Hax's "Tell Me About It" , or on Internet sites such as the "Elder Wisdom Circle", "Dear Maggie" and "Miriam's Advice Well".

Advice columns on the Internet provide ways to share one's interests and expertise. Anyone can be a columnist and create their own advice column. Users can post questions for columnist to answer. Users can also interact with the columnist and with each other to voice their opinions. E-mailing advisers are popular because readers can open up their personal problems without exposing their identity to the world.

Advice columns generally have limited capacity and are unable to answer all the requests they receive. They could potentially be criticized for raising the hopes of their correspondents for commercial gain.