When Did People Stop Writing Letters As Part Of Everyday Life?

[PAKMAN]

  On 10/16/2012 at 11:45 PM, Pickwick said:

  On 10/16/2012 at 4:25 PM, pakmanpony said:

Sadly I'm an instant gratification kind of guy. I rarely write letters and have never been much of a letter writer. I've started quite a few letters to communicate some information and ended up scrapping the letter and giving the person a call or dropping them an email. Between calls, email, texts and facebook there is very little information left to send in a letter to the people I want to keep in touch with.

With every respect what do you use the elegant pen you display for?

 

I use it for making important decisions! I have a dart board across the room and take my pen out of it's beautiful case and jam the cap on the back and sail it across the room into the dart board and let the number it lands on make the decision for me.

 

Actually it goes into rotation (like all of my pens) and gets used extensively for all of the different things we all use fountain pens for, just not usually for writing letters. As the point of this thread is that people don't write letters anymore, should it be suprising that many of the folks here on FPN don't hand write letters anymore!?

[MTS2]

  On 10/16/2012 at 6:59 AM, Pickwick said:

  On 10/15/2012 at 7:10 PM, MTS2 said:

  On 10/15/2012 at 5:39 PM, Pickwick said:

  On 10/15/2012 at 4:09 PM, SteveE said:

As recently as 1970, when I was in military training, letter writing was the primary means of communicating with the family. In the case of the trainee, this was due not only to the cost of long-distance telephone, but also to the convenience of letter writing. One could write when time permitted, and mail the letter when possible. Phones just weren't that widely available.

 

Fast-forward some 35 or 40 years and I find that my daughter (mid-20's) is every bit as letter-literate as we were when I was writing home to the family. She sends me emails often, and they are a true view into her life and feelings. We write back and forth often, either exploring feelings or solving problems. This even though we have a cell phone package that allows free communication from one cell phone to another, and also in spite of the fact that she lives only about 30 minutes from mom and dad. I don't think letter writing will cease to exist, but I do think it will migrate almost entirely to electronic delivery. Traditional hand-written letters may become the work of hobbyists, rather than being part of everyday life.

 

I agree with the other poster (sorry - forgot who made the point) that unless people print their emails, which most do not, then future generations may lose the ability to see life as we write about it.

 

I'm formulating the idea of scanning my handwritten letters into my computer and sending them to my co-respondents via email. After all quite a number of reviews on fountain pens and inks are done this way.

 

During World War two I have learned that the U.S. Military Post Office microfilmed personal letters in order to get these delivered very fast. The Microfilm was photographed back on to paper and delivered on to the recipient. Correspondence in times of war is very important for morale.

 

My co-respondent would be able to print them if they so desired. I'll start with my Sister to see what reaction I get.

 

Hey the scanning idea is great! I think i'm gonna start doing that. Still for myself at 23 years young I think that the pace of life we now lead is just too fast. My generation is all about "THE NOW" and not later. Perhaps we can learn to take a step back and buy out the time to smell the roses and write a letter that conveys, not only words, but emotion.

 

Your thoughts reminded me of a poem I learned at school written by William Henry Davies

 

What is this life if full of care,

 

We have no time to stand and stare.

 

No time to stand beneath the boughs

 

And stare as long as Sheep and Cows.

 

No time to see, when woods we pass

 

Where Squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

 

No time to see, in broad daylight

 

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

 

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

 

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

 

No time to wait till her mouth can

 

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

 

A poor life this if, full of care,

 

We have no time to stand and stare.

Ok, sniff, now I'm wiping tears away. That's beautiful!

[fuchsiaprincess]

  On 10/17/2012 at 3:32 AM, pakmanpony said:

  On 10/16/2012 at 11:45 PM, Pickwick said:

  On 10/16/2012 at 4:25 PM, pakmanpony said:

Sadly I'm an instant gratification kind of guy. I rarely write letters and have never been much of a letter writer. I've started quite a few letters to communicate some information and ended up scrapping the letter and giving the person a call or dropping them an email. Between calls, email, texts and facebook there is very little information left to send in a letter to the people I want to keep in touch with.

With every respect what do you use the elegant pen you display for?

 

I use it for making important decisions! I have a dart board across the room and take my pen out of it's beautiful case and jam the cap on the back and sail it across the room into the dart board and let the number it lands on make the decision for me.

 

Actually it goes into rotation (like all of my pens) and gets used extensively for all of the different things we all use fountain pens for, just not usually for writing letters. As the point of this thread is that people don't write letters anymore, should it be suprising that many of the folks here on FPN don't hand write letters anymore!?

 

But what are they, Perry? I find that other than writing letters, I seldom use my fountain pens for anything else. "To Do" lists and diary entries are all electronic for me.

[PAKMAN]

  On 10/17/2012 at 3:37 AM, fuchsiaprincess said:

  On 10/17/2012 at 3:32 AM, pakmanpony said:

  On 10/16/2012 at 11:45 PM, Pickwick said:

  On 10/16/2012 at 4:25 PM, pakmanpony said:

Sadly I'm an instant gratification kind of guy. I rarely write letters and have never been much of a letter writer. I've started quite a few letters to communicate some information and ended up scrapping the letter and giving the person a call or dropping them an email. Between calls, email, texts and facebook there is very little information left to send in a letter to the people I want to keep in touch with.

With every respect what do you use the elegant pen you display for?

 

I use it for making important decisions! I have a dart board across the room and take my pen out of it's beautiful case and jam the cap on the back and sail it across the room into the dart board and let the number it lands on make the decision for me.

 

Actually it goes into rotation (like all of my pens) and gets used extensively for all of the different things we all use fountain pens for, just not usually for writing letters. As the point of this thread is that people don't write letters anymore, should it be surprising that many of the folks here on FPN don't hand write letters anymore!?

 

But what are they, Perry? I find that other than writing letters, I seldom use my fountain pens for anything else. "To Do" lists and diary entries are all electronic for me.

 

Really, you only use your pens for letters???

 

Let's see:

- Love notes to my sweetie

- Adddressing envelopes

- My ink journal

- My ToDo Lists and my long range ToDo journal

- Grocery lists

- My daily journal

- Daily Crossword and Sudoku

- Calligraphy pratice

- Sketching

- Doodling when on the phone

- Taking notes during Sermons

- Data keeping for my Deacon contacts

- I also plan to hand calligraph the addresses for all of my daughters wedding invitations.

 

Used to have lots of more uses when I worked for the man every day.

[legume]

It's true that people don't put much thought into correspondence nowadays, but it would be pretty crazy to say that the rise of telephones, email, texts, etc. is a bad thing. I wouldn't be able to stay in touch with my parents as well as I do now without telephones since I'm really terrible at writing in Korean. My family thinks I'm weird for liking calligraphy and fountain pens so much, since let's face it, they're not really needed in the world anymore. Letter writing may be in decline but putting our thoughts down as eloquently as we can is not a lost art. In fact, technology gives more people than ever the chance to communicate, not just those at leisure to do so, and I think the shallow-mindedness Luddites lament is precisely this: anyone can and does say whatever they want. I put as much thought into writing electronic correspondence as I would writing a letter with pen and paper, and people who care about what they write always will no matter what the media. As much as I wish I had a pen pal, what we have now isn't half-bad.

[Mike Schutz]

There are many kinds of media for us to use. My fountain pen is as important to me as my iPhone.

 

The ax I want to grind here is the lack of the use of proper English, spelling and punctuation. I am far from expert in any of these areas but I at least try to put my words together with some sense of propriety. Too often, and I'm not the exception, we rely on our imperfect minds or the imperfect spell checkers and other computer tools to correct our mistakes. This forum's members are exceptional at writing responses that do use complete sentences with proper punctuation. But we've all seen the lack of proper spelling and absence of punctuation used in much of today's media. I have a Webster's dictionary on my computers and iPhone and an OED on my desk. They're not that hard to use and I advocate that more people use them.

 

Write on,

Edited November 4, 2012 by Mike Schutz

[andyslo]

  On 10/15/2012 at 4:42 AM, Pickwick said:

The major cause is the internet and emailing, now the use of cell phones. We are able to pick up messages anywhere. My son is in the UK at the moment and he picks up my emails via his iphone instantaneously. Most email messages I receive are Banal and uninteresting, the person sending sounds impersonal. That's because writers no longer give any real thought as to what they want to say.

 

The decline in letter writing accelerated in the 1990s, and it is inevitable that this current generation will see its demise. The down side of course is that nothing of significance will be left for future generations to get a grasp of how people lived their lives.

 

I have read a collection of letters from one of my wife's relatives who wrote to his Mother from 1836 - 1850. He relates his travels through Ohio, Missouri and down the Mississippi river. When I read them I found it not only revealed his character and personality but brought back to life the atmosphere of that period.

 

I can't see this electronic age doing that.

 

 

 

It will be much more difficult for future historians and biographers to understand their subjects. Even if they were to have access to emails, such electronic texts and emails, will surely have little to say, as compared to a letter, which was meant to communicate so much more. Modern technology can't match the information one learns when reading handwritten letters sent over months or years. Video, recordings, emails, none of it is as revealing of the personality, as a private letter written with thoughtfulness and designed to convey as much as possible from a distance. History is a big loser. As is the art of communicating private thoughts to a close few.

Edited November 8, 2012 by andyslo

[N2theBreach]

I don't bemoan the rise of technology, it wouldn't have grown, and continue to grow if there weren't a need for it. I daresay we have more information at our fingertips now, than a person would have seen in a lifetime, back in the day. And it's speeding up our lives to the point where we don't have time to "sit and stare" as Pickwick's poem says. We may need to find ways to make us sit and think, and letter writing is a way to do that.

 

So, I don't think that letter writing will ever go away totally, and here is why. Typically new technology surpasses the old, but doesn't drive it away. Think of the blacksmith. When cars and tractors became affordable, blacksmiths weren't needed in the same numbers as before, but people can still make a living at it, today, a hundred years on. We still know how to build a fire, even though it no longer means the difference between surviving, or not. People still use sailboats, but in a different way. They still make music themselves, on traditional instruments. And so on. The old still exists alongside the new.

 

I think letter writing will continue to exist, too, but the content may change. Instead of of simply a means to convey information, who knows where it might go? A way to exchange feelings? A way to share creative thoughts? I don't know.

 

I do know that we got a handwritten note from our daughter, recently, thanking my wife for spending the day with her! I think it's a first, something new that she's starting, at 30 yrs. old.

 

So, cancel the order for the gravestone, the Phoenix is rising, we just don't yet know what form it might take.

[terromur]

  On 10/17/2012 at 1:09 AM, wastelanded said:

If I received 200 emails a day, I'd throw my computer out the window. When someone in an office two doors down emails me instead of picking up the phone (or getting off their arse and walking 20 feet), I shake my head. Email is a wonderful thing, but jeez.

 

I love writing letters, even postcards, and better yet receiving them.

 

Does anyone know whether they still produce aerogrammes?

 

 

I think aerogrammes are gone, gone, gone. Canada Post doesn't sell them anymore. I still have a few blank ones (with no postage) from a stint in Geneva, but I think I'll donate them to a museum.

[cougarking]

At 50p and 60p a time to send a letter, its become a rich mans game!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Out of interest, wonder how much is it to send domestic mail in other counties ?

[J.R.]

IF it hasn't changed since my last trip to the Post Office, it's 41 cents, US. (Seems like it goes up, monthly).

[PaperDarts]

  On 10/17/2012 at 1:09 AM, wastelanded said:

If I received 200 emails a day, I'd throw my computer out the window. When someone in an office two doors down emails me instead of picking up the phone (or getting off their arse and walking 20 feet), I shake my head. Email is a wonderful thing, but jeez.

 

I love writing letters, even postcards, and better yet receiving them.

 

Does anyone know whether they still produce aerogrammes?

 

You still can buy aerogrammes in the UK, singles or a package, and they are FP friendly. I sent a couple from the Isle of Wight only weeks ago. I've also seen retro aerogrammes for sale here in Toronto though there isn't the same deal on postage as with the genuine article, and you can have enclosures with the retro ones which is strictly verboten with the real ones. Alas, the outside of the retro version is NOT FP friendly. Not so bad inside. PM me and I'll send you a sample of each.

[hermanlab]

I have a largely solid record of family correspondence from 1886 to the present. It is fascinating to see how the letters from parents to children span the children's lives as they grow up. Letters during times of war. Letters during the depression. Love letters. Letters of thanks, praise, business and complaint. And all written by hand, representing all sorts of writing instruments. This continued for five generations, including my own life. Today they form a priceless record of family history. The hand-written record went into decline, however, from about 1996 when telephone somehow just became more convenient. And as soon as email entered into our lives, over 90% of letters vanished. I have been typing since my grandfather gave me an old WWII Remington at the age of 12, but even then, my mother complained that my typed letters to her were less personal than hand written ones. My mother continues to write to me in her beautiful handwriting at times. I, at the very least, still address envelopes in scrolling letters - even if the contents are mostly typed.

[tinta]

What a wonderful thread!

Since most of what I wanted to say has been already said, I'll continue to read on.

[MichelleStClaire]

Just this morning, I posted a link on my company facebook page discussing how MANY k-12 schools are no longer teaching, or grading handwriting. Google any phrase like "no handwriting in public schools" and watch the endless reports of schools nationwide that are eliminating handwriting in exchange for keyboarding.

 

Darn shame...... Michelle

[welch]

I quit writing letters in the '90s, when other people got email. I worked then for GE Information Services. We invented one of the first email systems about 1970: General Electric's Crossfile, marketed by the division as Quick*Comm. In the early '90s, other people got email addresses on Compuserve, GEnie, AOL, and then general internet service providers.

 

I typed in the '70s. Quit using my typewriter as soon as I began using an editing program...DEC's TECO on a PDP-8. It was so easy to back up and re-write a sentence, or to move sentences and paragraphs. Incientally, Richard Binder worked for DEC back then, so there are at least a few of us who once knew TECO commands...which were obscure and maybe weird compared to any simple WYSIWYG word processing program.

[jaqcp]

I predict that the end of handwritten letters shall not precede me death by more than 2-5 years.

[cvasara]

  On 11/22/2012 at 2:42 AM, jaqcp said:

I predict that the end of handwritten letters shall not precede me death by more than 2-5 years.

 

Microsoft Word had a pretty big effect on it. Plus the fact that US Postage is at 45¢ for a one ounce letter, and going up another 1¢ in 2013

Since the first forever stamp was issued, The cost of a first class letter has gone up 10.8%, beginning in 2013.

Email, and attachments work much better, faster, and a great dictionary.

[Pickwick]

  On 11/9/2012 at 4:36 AM, N2theBreach said:

I don't bemoan the rise of technology, it wouldn't have grown, and continue to grow if there weren't a need for it. I daresay we have more information at our fingertips now, than a person would have seen in a lifetime, back in the day. And it's speeding up our lives to the point where we don't have time to "sit and stare" as Pickwick's poem says. We may need to find ways to make us sit and think, and letter writing is a way to do that.

 

So, I don't think that letter writing will ever go away totally, and here is why. Typically new technology surpasses the old, but doesn't drive it away. Think of the blacksmith. When cars and tractors became affordable, blacksmiths weren't needed in the same numbers as before, but people can still make a living at it, today, a hundred years on. We still know how to build a fire, even though it no longer means the difference between surviving, or not. People still use sailboats, but in a different way. They still make music themselves, on traditional instruments. And so on. The old still exists alongside the new.

 

I think letter writing will continue to exist, too, but the content may change. Instead of of simply a means to convey information, who knows where it might go? A way to exchange feelings? A way to share creative thoughts? I don't know.

 

I do know that we got a handwritten note from our daughter, recently, thanking my wife for spending the day with her! I think it's a first, something new that she's starting, at 30 yrs. old.

 

So, cancel the order for the gravestone, the Phoenix is rising, we just don't yet know what form it might take.

 

It's speeding up our lives unecessarily. Think of the amount of time spent in front of a TV, Computer, or slavishly answering a cell phone to listening to banalities and non urgent requests, Texting wothlessl messages, playing around with all the paraphanila on ipads. Life went on the same without them. All we're really doing is running like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland trying to stay in the same place.

 

Einstein made this statement: "If technology overtakes humanity, I fear we shall have a generation of idiots." For me: "Stop this lunatic world, I wish to get off!"

[Silvermink]

My main problem with emails is that I get so many of them and deal with so many things through email at work that email itself has become a chore. My parents and my grandmother like to email me, but I'd much rather give them a phone call because that's much more enjoyable and doesn't have the overtones of "ugh, not another one of these to write". For whatever reason I'm happy to spend half an hour chatting on the phone with my grandmother but spending half an hour writing her an email would just be painful.

 

Maybe I should write her a letter again one of these days. She used to send me letters now and then but with her arthritis her handwriting is just this side of illegible, so she's pretty much made the switch.