E-Mail has become one of the most popular ways of communicating in this day and age. Long gone are the days where you would write a letter, address it, put a stamp on it, give it to the post man and wait two weeks for a reply. Thanks to computers and the internet, we now have electronic mail. E-Mail has become part of our ever increasing now based society. In society today we want everything and we want it now! Thanks to E-Mail we can communicate anything in a matter of minutes as opposed to sending a letter and waiting who knows how many weeks for the response. Electronic mail has changed the way we communicate with each other, but at what price?
When we communicate using E-Mail our messages lose some of they’re personality. With using E-Mail we use a typical font that is somewhat bland and cold as opposed to writing a letter with our own handwriting. Our handwriting style has some basic characteristics that are unique to each individual that in a way puts our personal stamp on our message. When we want to express love we might use a flowing script style that helps convey the message and when we want to yell we might write in all block caps, which in a way can be done using E-Mail, but not as effectively as when we write it ourselves. How can you seal your letter with a kiss using E-Mail? To the best of my knowledge this is not possible using E-Mail.
Another problem with using E-Mail is you get a few basic stationary types to write with which are generic and everybody seems to have the same ones. The stationary you choose can be quite personal and you might want use different stationary depending on the type of letter you are sending and the purpose of the letter. Another drawback of E-Mail is it does not have the lasting impression that a letter has. Many people save the letters they receive from their loved ones as keepsakes. The stationary, the writing, and the unique little drawings and annotations on the letter are all personal and may carry special meanings to the writer and the recipient which cannot be conveyed using E-Mail. No one wants to print out and save a bunch of generic E-Mails as keepsakes although I may be wrong it just doesn’t seem personal enough.
I guess what I am trying to say is there are many drawbacks to using E-Mail but there are also many perks to it. I do believe that there is a time and a place for everything and E-Mail does have its place in our society. Even though we may not want to use it for letters to our loved ones it can be used just fine for a quick note, business communication, and a funny joke you wanted to share with somebody you care about. While E-Mail is here to stay it cannot and does not replace the unique handwritten letter from a loved one.
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I LOVED your blog! I still write letters today, mostly to my father. I love getting letters in return. I love seeing the way someone writes, they way they put things or little drawings that they give me to express love. E-mails are quick, easy and effortless which is something our society seems to treasure today. The excitement that I get when i find out someone took real time out of theirs lives and put a lot of thought into something like a letter to send to me makes me happy and makes me feel like I am worth their time. An e-mail never has and in my opinion never will do that for me. Though I do not delete all of my e-mails I have every single letter I have ever received from my dad. There are at least a hundred and I love all of them. Most have pictures and all are written in such a beautiful style electronically cannot be duplicated. Loved your blog and completely agree.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you there are many set backs to an email and it does have it perks but it can never have as much personal touch or the meaning that a letter can have. I, myself have a number of letters that I have in my possession and they are very close to my heart. When I get emails from people I read it and usually I am deleting it like two seconds letters. For me the email is usually not personal but I find it funny that people get so mad or misinterprets the things said in a email that are not usually meant to be. For myself I just don’t think you can replace what a letter brings and in fact emails and sending letters online are actually affecting mail itself i just think too much technology is bad and this is the case for email. When I get a letter from someone I know I get excited whether I see them on a regular basis or if I see them only one a year it is something that I look forward to. Give me a letter over a email any day of the week I will take personality over something that is not meant to be personal at all.
ReplyDeleteHi aomoomoo681! You seem like a person who enjoys writing letters to her friends and families. In this day and age, it’s seems like people like you are getting rarer to find. I still do and love writing missives by hand (as in handwriting as oppose to hand typing). It’s just that it’s getting harder to find the time to do so with all our responsibilities from home, school and work. But I do enjoy writing and receiving letter that was handwritten. You’re right, handwritten letters hold more sentimental value and memory than an electronic mail. Its factors such as the handwriting of the person who wrote it, the sweet smelling scent of the stationery and the intricate or its lovely paper design, and the message that were carefully thought of before it was written on paper are just the simple yet lasting impression that makes a handwritten letter special. In e-mails, one can hit delete anytime, they can type as fast or as slow as they want (but for sure most people type faster now, otherwise, what’s the use of the fast communication if we hadn’t adapt to faster medium of communication, right?), typing faster on a computer takes away the opportunity to deeply think of what you should really write and concentrate on what the real message one wants to convey. Commenting on what you said here that most people wouldn’t want to collect generic e-mail messages and print them in generic fonts and plain white paper. But I do. I only did it with my then sweetheart, now husband when we were apart. I believe that the sentimental value of a letter relies on the message and who it came from. Obviously, if it’s from a person we truly have great emotion for then we do keep it and place a high value on it, regardless of whether it’s in plain paper or fancy stationery. In fact, I still keep my husband’s e-mail messages in my e-mail accounts, and some of them are saved in hard discs that are dated back 10 years ago. However, I get more butterflies and deeper emotion of nostalgia and appreciation whenever I read his handwritten letters for me in stationeries. No plain, white paper can replace that feeling.
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