To Email Or To Snail Mail...that is the question!?

I decided to write to my aunt who lives in Portland and a long time family friend who lives in Arizona. I knew before I had begun writing the letters to thank them for their continual support that I would email my aunt and write a long-handed letter to my friend Frank. I have been trying to contact Frank for quite some time now and we have failed to communicate through email. We don’t know why our letters are not sending to each other so with that I decided this assignment would be a great opportunity to send him and his family good old snail mail. As for my aunt I have realized throughout the years that the fastest way to stay in contact with her is through email.

My language was different when I look back at the two letters that I sent. My aunt’s email was shorter in length then the hand written version and I was not as cordial or professional I should say. I am closer to my aunt and we know each other very well so it was easier for me to joke around, leave smiley faces and other such things. I was also able to ask her a more serious personal question instead of being more formal toward Frank. Now, I have known Frank since I was a little girl. My mom had been very close to him and I am able to discuss openly but because we haven’t gotten a chance to really catch up recently I didn’t want my letter to include anything negative. Or perhaps something that would worry him and his family. With my aunt we can start where we left off no matter how long it may have been so it was a much easier letter for me to write. I think that these circumstances depend on how well I know the person I am writing to and our relationship. I found this to be the case as I analyzed the two different messages.

The two lengths of the messages were different as I briefly mentioned earlier. I think because I was sending a hand written letter and it was going to such a far destination that I wanted to make it much longer. With email things can be very cut and dry and you can send a message within minutes. Compared to the email I sent, my letter took a lot more time. For those of you who might know me, I really pride myself on my penmanship and want things very neat and precise. When I was writing the letter I wanted to make sure everything looked just right. I guess you could say I put much more pride and effort into my hand written message. As for the responses I received, I have only received one from my aunt a day ago. I haven’t heard from Frank yet and I sent them on the same day but of course ones slower to arrive than the other. I am curious to see if Frank will in turn send another hand written letter back to me or if he instead will send an email.

To me an email is much easier but not as personal as the hand written ones. Its shows you put some time and effort into writing the letter especially in today’s society. Postman states on page 72, “The relationship between information and the mechanisms for its control is fairly simple to describe: Technology increases the available supply of information. As the supply is increased, control mechanisms are strained.” I really like this specific quote and I have to agree. The more information technology is able to put forward, the harder and more difficult it becomes to control the situation. I also can compare this to our assignment because before email people relied more heavily on hand written letters. I know there were other forms to communicate but specifically comparing these two with one another, letters came before emails. People relied on letters for their interpersonal communication not emails. With technology constantly changing and people now having the option of emailing they rely more heavily on this method. Therefore technology is being increased, the old methods are being used less and less and its becoming harder to control the realms of communication.

Chapter five in Wood and Smiths novel goes into detail about therapy online. They state on page 107, “Cases of people whose lives have been negatively affected by the presence of the Internet.” I believe that email messages can be sent very easily. Perhaps you’re writing a mean message in your drafts when you’re angry not meaning to send it to the person but you do so anyway on accident. The internet has made things very accessible and easy. Its also very easy to find someone or past information that could in turn hurt an individual. With a good old hand written letter, people are aware of what their sending, probably are taking a little more time and putting more thought into it. They have a lot of time to think about what they wrote while they get a stamp and then mail the letter.

So the question now is what is the importance of all of this? I think that this assignment says a lot about our culture and society today. I think we have become lazy, including myself and the idea of sending a hand written letter just seems to take too much time. I bet if I asked people if they emailed or sent a personal letter more, I guarantee they would say email. I think that its fine but I think we also have lost sight on what’s important. Taking the time to send a personal letter to a friend, thanking them for having influence in my life is huge. I have not specifically sat down to write a thank you letter in a very long time. It felt great to do so and I think that sending a hand written letter is the way to go if possible. Our society is constantly changing but I hope to rely more on the good old fashioned snail mail. Does anyone else agree?