I have always written a lot of letters. I use a collection of fountain pens and different ink depending on my mood. It costs me a small fortune in postage stamps but it's worth it.
My last post was about oral non-face-to-face communication but when I was a youngster letters were still the way almost everyone communicated with their relatives and so on who didn't live nearby.
Then came The Internet and home computers which allowed us to send emails. Email was cemented in the public consciousness with the notorious “you've got mail” sound of email arriving for AOL users, which formed the cornerstone of the 1998 Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan romantic comedy, "You've Got Mail".
Then, for me, came Blogging in June 2007 as a way of communicating what I was doing in Scotland and New Zealand to my friends and family in the 'other' country.
In 2004 Facebook arrived but I was never part of it until 2010 when it was possible to 'post' your Blogger post on Facebook using Networked Blogs. That was discontinued by Facebook long ago but I stayed on Facebook though I rarely post.
As well as emails we could text each other on our mobile phones.
Twitter (Now called X and owned by Elon Musk) arrived 21 March 2006
WhatsApp (Meta) arrived in 2009
Messenger (Facebook) in 2011
Telegram (Pavel Durov and Nikolai Durov) on the 14 August 2013.
TikTok (ByteDance) in September 2016.
In 1944 (the year of my birth) a simple letter in the UK was 2½d which is the equivalent of 56p today. In fact a first class stamp today for the same letter is £1.35. However, except for communicating by landline or mobile phone which are usually included in monthly rental these days all the other methods I've mentioned above are available "free".
Formal letter writing and actual mail has indeed become extinct, or nearly so. I never take pen to paper any more other than for thank you cards or get well cards. As I think about it, I have to confess there is a certain nostalgia for those days. I still remember the excitement of receiving airmail correspondence with special coloured borders and exotic stamps. It has gone forever, however, so we might as well get used to it - those who knew it anyway! Every day there are fewer of us left!
ReplyDeleteDavid, you are certainly correct in there being fewer of us every day. However friends (particularly friends abroad) always say how much they enjoy receiving snail mail missives. But then most of them are of a similar age to me so perhaps that's understandable. However one or two of my family's children still write thank you missives.
DeleteI have written all my life but in recent years the amount of handwriting I produce has been quite minimal - mostly rough notes to myself in an exercise book. I used to enjoy choosing holiday postcards and sending them home but that habit is also on the verge of death. Millions of young people will never have sent a single postcard in their lives.
ReplyDeleteThat's certainly true, YP, although PostCrossing thrives and I believe that quite a few PCers are not in their dotage. Many people have replaced handwritten missives with emails. Most youngsters though use WhatsApp and the like (as do I).
DeleteDespite the fact that US first class postage will increase (again) in mid-July, I will still send handwritten cards, notes and letters, just perhaps less often. Of the various current methods of communication, you listed here, Graham, the WhatsApp one is the only one I’ve used as we were introduced to it on our travels abroad last fall. Aside from that, blogging is my main form on online communication and that’s fine with me.
ReplyDeleteBeatrice, WhatsApp is my principal form of communication with most of my friends although my New Zealand friends and family tend to use Messenger and Telegram.
DeletePostcards! I was a diligent writer from childhood to around my early 30s, some holidays I would send up to 15 cards, to anyone from grandparents to my work place. Nowadays I only send birthday and Christmas cards and, very rarely, a get well or condolence or letter. I love receiving what is often called snail mail, and always resolve to write more myself, but then end up disappointed when a card or letter to family and friends in the UK or US take weeks or months to arrive in spite of much increased postage.
ReplyDeleteMeike, I've been having problems with missives going missing or arriving wet or even being returned because the only thing discernable has been my return address. However some of my friends have never had computers or smartphone and some have suffered strokes making most communication impossible. For them receiving a written missive is even more important.
DeleteLike Librarian, I like to send Christmas, birthday, and special occasion cards but otherwise I rarely mail anything these days. Even bill payments are all online for me now so I don't use checks much at all.
ReplyDeleteI do miss getting mail and often my mailbox is just filled with unwanted junk mail.
Fortunately, Ellen, I don't get much junk mail (I'm not sure about the UK in general though) but a lot of things still come via Royal Mail including medical appointments. I got a cheque a few weeks ago. I discovered that you don't pay in at a bank any more but use your iPhone app. I could not recall how many years it was since I'd had a cheque or, indeed, issued one.
DeleteI send Christmas, birthday, congratulation and condolence notes. I write every day in my journal - a different pen and different coloured ink every time . Half my family sends cards, the other half doesn't. So long as I hear from them, one way or another, it doesn't bother me.
ReplyDeleteJanice, I love your different pens and different inks. I'm with you on that one.
DeleteI am guilty of writing less and less in my journal...must do better!
ReplyDeleteI love sending and receiving postcards..and letters too, whatever the cost. I wouldn't say that letters are now irrelevant..even an email printed off, although legible, doesn't show the character of the writer and how they feel "between the lines"
GZ I find that my emails (of which there are many) are far more considered and a lot less spontaneous than my letters.
Delete"There is nothing permanent except change", Heraclitus, 500BC
ReplyDeleteI still write condolences cards by hand but pretty much every other form of written correspondence in my world comes via a keyboard.
Jayne, I'm rather surprised. Not that you are not a modernist, but simply because I had you in my thoughts as a 'writer'.
DeleteThat's OK Graham, I think of myself as a writer too.
DeleteI am trained typist and have retained my speed and most of my accuracy over the years, and these days my hand could not possibly keep up with my thoughts whereas with a keyboard I can just about keep up 😃
That's the difference Jayne. I'd love to have been a proper typist but I never succeeded. To keep up with myself I make bullet point notes on the side whilst I'm writing.
DeleteI used to write lots of long letters from my teens and onward, back in the previous century (also using a typewriter, before computers) but gradually switched to emails etc from the turn of the century onward. A contributing factor for me was also an injury to neck/shoulder/arm in 2000, making it difficult for me to write much by hand. Gradually got back to writing postcards and short letters by hand now and then - but as you also mention, postage has lately become redicilously high, and does not really encourage one to do do that very frequently any more. (With current exchange rate, around the same cost as yours for a domestic letter or postcard - and twice that to send one abroad. ) I use Facebook and Messenger with a limited number of friends, but have so far stayed off Twitter(X) and Instagram etc. Hoping that Blogger will keep going for a while longer, though...!
ReplyDeleteMonica, oddly I've just been going through all the missives I've received in the last couple of years. It's lovely seeing them and being reminded of moments in time made by friends who actually took that moment to tell you something. Thank you.
DeleteI'm so bad at switching my phone on or attending to email that people get through to me quicker if they do write me a letter.
ReplyDeleteTasker, you've just made me laugh a proper belly laugh.
DeleteI'm pretty sure you and I and those of a similar age will be safe from "Beam me up, Scotty" but I wouldn't be too sure about those a generation or two younger.
ReplyDeleteOur postal service is being cut back again, there just isn't enough mail to warrant 5 day a week mail delivery. I can't complain, the only way I contribute to the mail service is with the occasional birthday, get well and condolence cards. My hand writing is so bad I've become a reluctant letter writer. But I do so enjoy receiving mail!!
Oddly, Pauline, I thought that the RDS (Rural Delivery Service) had been cut when I was living in New Zealand. I recall the fuss about many elderly people in remote areas who relied on the postman for things like milk delivery (informally of course) but also for being checked upon.
DeleteYou're right, Graham. It has been cut back several times over the past few years but the service for RD people was more frequent than for urban folk. Now the post office is going to lay off 700 posties over the next five years and pass their duties to contracted courier drivers. I have reservations about that. Certainly wouldn't want to be a courier driver trying to find parking spots on some urban streets to deliver letters. They will just double park like they do now most of the time. I prefer to imagine courier vans whizzing along the footpaths.
DeleteJust last week our mail delivery service was cut to every second day, weekends excluded. I'm trying to think of last mail I received of any note and after a few months of there being nothing, my new Medicare card arrived by post last week. Otherwise there has been nothing that couldn't immediately be shredded since a few, very few Christmas cards arrived.
ReplyDeleteWhat changes we've seen in our lifetimes and it will just keep on happening.
Indeed, Andrew, the changes are startling. Royal Mail here now delivers parcels as well as letters. It will also pick up letters and parcels from your home to deliver elsewhere.
DeleteWe may be communicating more, but it sure seems as if we are listening less.
ReplyDeleteDebby, I think you are correct. We are bombarded with information by the hour using all the platforms I mentioned.
DeleteCool ending for your post. Communication development has changed rapidly. It will continue to change. we need something when globalization spreads us across the globe.
ReplyDeleteRed, I often wonder what could possibly come next.
DeleteI only use Email and WhatsApp these days, they cope with all my needs. My wife sent a birthday card yesterday; in all it cost over £5. No thanks!
ReplyDeleteCro, I think you are becomming part of the great majority. Abiit ad plures.
DeleteI think so called progress is good in some ways, I like to use the phone and never yet had a friend say, they didn't like my calling them, and I liked it too.
ReplyDeleteIt's good to hear from you, Chris. I agree. I reckon that I have between 7 and 10 social phone conversations a week. Some long and some very short. All are direct human contact. It had to be a Good Thing.
DeleteRight away, I think I'm unsure if I'd want a beam up. If, however, it clears my cells of any and all negative illnesses, then I'd go beam.
ReplyDeleteProgress isn't everywhere with everything. What is the best way to contact you...I fill in Text. As yet, not all places use cell phones.
Maywyn, I've always automatically answered with my mobile phone number which gives people the option of text or call.
DeleteSometimes I do wish social media had never been invented but then I can see some good in it, I remember the days of letters though, it was exciting to hear from friends and family when something arrived in the post. As for twitter and most of the others I don't use them, I think people get a little bit too hooked on online stuff.
ReplyDeleteAmy, I agree with you wholeheartedly. I like the apps I can use for proper conversations with friends (or get a message saying when someone I'm meeting is going to be late!) but Twitter and Instagram etc I can do without.
DeleteWhen my first child was born in 1995 somebody who hadnt heard asked why I didn't email. I didnt have an address, there was no internet to the place we lived, I didn't even own a computer.
ReplyDeleteHow things have changed.
I still send snail mail on occasions: a get well card, condolence cards, sometimes a birthday card. And I've written to people when I knew they didn't have long to live. It just seemed right to hand write something
Kylie I'm right with you on that. There's nothing like a handwritten missive in those circumstances. Coincidentally I did a possibly not long to live one yesterday. They are the most difficult.
DeleteI have some friends to whom I communicate mostly by snail mail. I have been writing letters for decades, and I am not ready to give up. Writing by hand (also, sometimes, with my father's old typewriter) is something especial. I don't know anybody who is not happy when getting a letter, or just a postcard from holidays. The current prices prevent me to write even more, that's true. But still is a beloved hobby to me.
ReplyDeleteWhat I use less these days for personal purposes is e-mail, and I am not in social media.
I'm Eva.
DeleteThanks for your thoughts, Eva. It's always good to hear of other handwriters.
DeleteWe share the same birth year, Graham.
ReplyDeletePostage stamps, just late, rose to $1.50 here.
Our world is rapidly changing...and not always in the best of ways, unfortunately.