Don’t shoot the messenger. But in America, one third of children have never handwritten a letter.
And it’s not just kids. Nearly 40 percent of adult Americans haven’t written a letter in the last five years, while 43 percent of Millenials have never sent one in their lifetime. Whereas recent studies show that Generation Z can’t read cursive and has no idea what the heck Grandma’s letters say.
The New York Times says that “The age of proper correspondence writing has ended…”
“Letter writing is an endangered art,” The Atlantic said.
“The death knell of written correspondence has been sounding for years,” said the Chicago Tribune.
This is not new information, of course, unless you’ve been living underneath a slab of granite. Letters have been replaced by emails and texts.
But texts and emails are not letters. An email has no charm. A text message does not not feel private. You cannot smell the paper. You cannot feel the weight of stationary in your
hands. An email is temporary. An email will only last as long as your device is charged.
Fact: Around 92 percent of working Americans feel anxiety when they see an unread email in their inbox.
But a letter. A letter is real. A letter exists in physical space. A letter will not disappear unless you burn it.
There are letters that still exist from 500 BC. Letters from early Romans. Letters from kings and queens. Letters from soldiers in the American Revolution.
A letter is artwork. It is culture. It is language. A letter represents years of handwriting practice in Mrs. Burns penmanship class, as she peered over her cat eye glasses at you, barbarically swatting a ruler in her open palm.
A letter is a moment of time. It is rewrites, spelling corrections, merciless editing, and the act of keeping one’s lines straight.
You can…