Are Pen Pals History?

Throughout human history some of mans most memorable pieces of literature have been correspondences to friends and acquaintances, often from travelers. Pauls letters to the Corinthians (Christianity), Emily Dickinsons letters to her compatriots and Martin Luther Kings Letter from a Birmingham Jail are all known as classics of literature of the Western World.

Would Paul have made the effort in an email? Would poetry be as memorable if it had been written as a Facebook post? Would Kings thoughts have been as controversial if they were limited to the 140 letters of a Twitter blast? Has new technology, with its themes of immediacy and brief tone, made emotional contact an ancient relic?

Additionally, cultured letter writing wasnt the only communication to be hit. Valentine mail are a fading art now and writing buddies are unheard of these days. These trends have their origins present in the developments in email and phone tech.

Before the 19th century, if you had to correspond with a pal or a loved one who lived far away, your only choice was to ink down your thoughts, then seal it and send it in the mail. Writing the letter also needed a small investment of time, so writers packed a lot of thought into every correspondence. Also, since there was no expectation of an immediate answer, the writer gave himself had a lot of time to write a good message also.

This all began to change when phones became a common method of contact. Friends and family members could now speak directly from anywhere in the country, and eventually from any place on the planet. Mail still maintained its place, because far away contacts were extremely pricey, and a pen was more portable than a phone.

The decline in correspondence really began to accelerate with the inventions of the cellular phone and the web. Popular use of cells meant that immediate verbal communication was possible from virtually anywhere at anytime, and it was unimportant whether the call was local or long distance. By the same token, the advent of laptops and online connection has enabled mailed communications to be immediate, and more efficient than letters.

Such technological milestones have brought some good. Communicating over long distances is now much more convenient. It is much easier for family to coordinate plans and coworkers to share information. And while writing buddies might be on the way out it is now quite common for kids to talk with each other over the internet, either as individuals or in school.

If there is a downside to these innovations, perhaps it is that, since communication is so much easier now, people place much less value on the individual bits of communication. Texters and tweeters can post something at a moments notice, so only a moments thought goes into the writing. This is a shame, because if so little thought goes into composing the communication, then there is very little reason to preserve it.