I'm in my mid-thirties and I sent my last handwritten letter last week.
I write on Crown Mill writing paper, which has a great feel against the fingertips, using a mid-range Cross fountain pen. People often express their appreciation at receiving a handwritten letter on quality paper, written in a smooth, flowing ink and cursive handwriting. It gets remembered.
I've given two very small gifts to kids (a 3 year old and a 12 year old) - both sent me hand-written thank you letters in the mail. I was shocked. I guess I was also shocked that the 3 year old had her own stationary. :)
Well, let's face it for real and realise that this is a good thing. Physical letters dying is a good thing for us. We don't need to consume more paper for interpersonal communication.
Let me plug (shamelessly) an online letter-writing service that my friends and I have created:
We bring true letter-writing experience on the web. It's basically email with doodles, handwriting, ordinary paper like behavior etc. 100% online, supported on iPad/Wacom Pentab and the desktop... :)
While certainly one can't get the smell and fibrous touch of physical paper, but we do go as far as possible to bring letter-like expressions - visual, format-wise and emotional connect on our service.
It wouldn't be very surprising if the vast majority of teens who do not know how to write a letter have parents who do not write letters themselves.
That said, it seems surprising to me that the topic of 'where does the mail come from and how does it get to where it is going' would have come up at least once in 18 years of childhood given that mail shows up at homes every day.
When I was teaching middle school several years ago, my 6th grade students didn't know about long distance phone calls. I took it upon myself to give a basic explanation about phone calls, switchboards, and even things like 10-10-321.
Teen here. I don't see how this is considered a bad thing. I've never needed to mail a physical letter before. We're experiencing a shift of paradigms. Physical communication is dying.
It's just one of those "Oh God I'm getting old" moments.
When you realise that the person you're talking too wasn't born when Star Wars was released - well, ok. But then you find out they were born after "Little Mermaid". There's that xkcd about "Little Mermaid" being closer to man being on the moon than to today.
You know they don't know what a shared party line is. (I lived in a village. There was one phone line, shared between several houses. They used phased switching to make the correct phones ring. When you picked up the handset you either got a dial tone or you got someone else's conversation.) Okay, that's ancient, they don't know it. But then you realise that they don't know what an acoustic coupler is, and they've never dialed a number but punched it in on buttons. And then they were born around the time I got my fourth cell phone (Motorola StarTac).
You know they don't know what Compuserve is. Or what AOHell is. Or why InternetTV and midi signatures make some grown men cry. But then you realise that they've probably never used a real smtp client, only webmail. Yahoo! has never been big in their lifetime - they can't remember when buying yahoo stocks was the punchline in a timetravel movie.
I was raging today because I found out that Intel has some network drivers that are 2 GB. But I remember the time when a mouse driver was 10 MB and I thought that was too much.
18 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 17.5 ms ] threadI write on Crown Mill writing paper, which has a great feel against the fingertips, using a mid-range Cross fountain pen. People often express their appreciation at receiving a handwritten letter on quality paper, written in a smooth, flowing ink and cursive handwriting. It gets remembered.
Let me plug (shamelessly) an online letter-writing service that my friends and I have created:
It's called bubbles: https://bubbleideas.com
We bring true letter-writing experience on the web. It's basically email with doodles, handwriting, ordinary paper like behavior etc. 100% online, supported on iPad/Wacom Pentab and the desktop... :)
While certainly one can't get the smell and fibrous touch of physical paper, but we do go as far as possible to bring letter-like expressions - visual, format-wise and emotional connect on our service.
Kramer had it right. Good riddance.
Probably from cost perspective, but from emotional connect point of view it certainly is a loss[1][2].
[1] http://www.ted.com/talks/hannah_brencher_love_letters_to_str...
[2] http://www.ted.com/talks/lakshmi_pratury_on_letter_writing.h...
That said, it seems surprising to me that the topic of 'where does the mail come from and how does it get to where it is going' would have come up at least once in 18 years of childhood given that mail shows up at homes every day.
When I was teaching middle school several years ago, my 6th grade students didn't know about long distance phone calls. I took it upon myself to give a basic explanation about phone calls, switchboards, and even things like 10-10-321.
When you realise that the person you're talking too wasn't born when Star Wars was released - well, ok. But then you find out they were born after "Little Mermaid". There's that xkcd about "Little Mermaid" being closer to man being on the moon than to today.
You know they don't know what a shared party line is. (I lived in a village. There was one phone line, shared between several houses. They used phased switching to make the correct phones ring. When you picked up the handset you either got a dial tone or you got someone else's conversation.) Okay, that's ancient, they don't know it. But then you realise that they don't know what an acoustic coupler is, and they've never dialed a number but punched it in on buttons. And then they were born around the time I got my fourth cell phone (Motorola StarTac).
You know they don't know what Compuserve is. Or what AOHell is. Or why InternetTV and midi signatures make some grown men cry. But then you realise that they've probably never used a real smtp client, only webmail. Yahoo! has never been big in their lifetime - they can't remember when buying yahoo stocks was the punchline in a timetravel movie.
I was raging today because I found out that Intel has some network drivers that are 2 GB. But I remember the time when a mouse driver was 10 MB and I thought that was too much.
I'm kind of worried that we don't properly archive and release emails.
What happens to my email if I die? What happens to the email of FAMOUS_SCIENTIST if she dies?