Last week Oxford University neuroscientist Baroness Susan Greenfield was discussing the death of the letter. Emails did a good job of wiping it out, or starting the trend, and social media is helping finish it off for good. Why send that yearly catch-up in handwritten ink when you can keep tabs on your loved ones online? Baroness Greenfield says soon kids won’t have any concept of why we would even hand write a letter to begin with, let alone send one. And let’s face it, she’s kind of right…
“When I moved from Melbourne to the country a few months ago, I vowed I would write more handwritten letters. Free from the distractions of friends, family and Chadstone shopping centre, I thought a stint in the country would give me more time for the more simple things in life; I’d bake scones after work, learn to knit, star gaze at night and write letters to the people I loved and missed.
Oh how wrong I was.
Life did slow down in the country, but Facebook did not. Nor did Twitter and nor did the online availability of Gossip Girl season four. And it didn’t take me long to realise that letters sent in the country are about as useful as they are in the city. Which is not at all. (And suffice to say the ornate paper, envelopes and 100-plus stamps I bought at the beginning of my step-back-in-time adventure, now lay idly in the bottom of my desk drawer.)
It’s been a while since I’ve written and sent a letter. In fact, it’s been a while since I’ve received a letter that wasn’t a bill or a reminder from the blood bank. I used to be heavy into postcards, but nowadays I’m more inclined to whack up a Facebook status and hand deliver cards when I come home from a trip.
More and more, I’m seeing less and less handwritten notes in the mail. Post cards are drying up, and Christmas cards? Well, the mantelpiece is not a decked as it once was on Christmas Eve. Love letters have been outdone with YouTube tribute songs and letters of resignation are fast becoming superfluous with the right Facebook status.
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The last time I received something handwritten in the mail was a few months ago. It was a post card from a dear friend who was away with work. We are old uni friends & have always sent each other postcards when we travel. We used to write real letters after I moved interstate aged 21 & we have both had stints living overseas & written then to. Our letters dwindled when we finally lived in the same city again. Now with busy lives, we email or phone & catch up in person when we can.
The last letter I wrote was to my aunt who lives interstate. I try to write to her a few times a year. She has been unwell & in hospital on & off over the last year & I know she likes receiving anything - phone call, letter, card.
I still hand write Christmas cards & occasionally make them too. Having less time with a child means I make way fewer cards but I used to make cards for special friends all the time. My daughter & I sometimes make cards for her friends. She draws with crayons & we add stickers to decorate them & I write the words (she is almost 3).
As a child I had a pen pal in England & one in Japan & I loved writing & receiving letters & still do. I have an ongoing stationery fetish! There is something so lovely about writing on beautiful paper with a good pen. I also wrote to several high school friends when they moved away for uni, then when I moved away interstate & when we travelled. I adored getting aerograms from one friend from lovely sounding places.
I appreciate the immediacy of email, don't quite see the point of Twitter & don't mind a bit of Facebook, though I am a fairly passive user. I tend to use email like writing a handwritten letter, just with briefer content & the ability to edit what I say.
I think letter writing is still a useful skill & I will teach my daughter how to correspond with her interstate grandma when she learns to write.
Today. A short letter, and not that exciting. A handwritten letter nonetheless. At least the card I sent with it was funny.