E-mails vs Handwritten Letters

[Scooter]

I worry about formats being obsolete years from now. For example, the last 8 years of my life in pictures are locked away on a disc in JPG files. Far too many to print (thousands). One day, when I'm 80 years old and wanna reminisce, and jpg/CD is obsolete, it'll be gone to me forever.

But I'll still have a few 35mm prints from the 80's and '90's.

[traveler]

I have sent most of my Christmas cards by E-maill this year. It has saved me about 200 dollars without using stamps, buying cards and the travel to the PO. I like e-mail alot better.
Bruce

[Larwyn]

I would rather travel a bit and see a person face to face than call, write or e-mail them. To me, a handwritten note is more personal than a phone call, and phone call more so than an e-mail. But then junk e-mail is less intrusive and annoying than a telemarketing call. I would not feel any great loss if there were no electronic means of communication.

My vote goes to a one on one visit or a handwritten letter for anything of any real importance.

[S. Heisley]

But, you can say things during a phone call that you would never put in print...or handwriting.

[Corwin C]

I use e-mail and electronic communications everyday ... It would be difficult for me to give them up. However, I fear that the art of the hand written word is being lost. I pick up pen and paper often (sometimes even a dip pen) and I am in the process of teaching my children this capability as well. Personal handwritten letters, journals, even handwritten notes and messages are the things that our children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren will cherish.

I have letters, recipe cards, ledgers, shop notes, etc. from all sides of my family, and each one is precious.

Corwin

[Shadow Catcher]

I remember one politician saying that he was more likely to read handwritten letters than e-mails. He felt they represented a good bit more effort in the writing. I myself even though I use the computer a great deal prefer having something printed in front of me. When I was working on my second degree I had a great number of journal articles that I had to read. And I tended to print them off. We ended up having a problem with our printer and one of the things that they had me do was to retrieve how many pages had been printed, in one year it was more than 3000.

[Todah Tear]

I have sent most of my Christmas cards by E-maill this year. It has saved me about 200 dollars ...and the travel to the PO. I like e-mail alot better.
Bruce

** ...and you call yourself a "Traveler", yet you deny yourself the pleasure of a trip to the PO and it's long Christmas season lines Seriously though, I know what you mean. Those lines at the usually put a damper on my visits to the PO. I try to buy stamps at a grocery store or some secondary business.

***Sharon, you femme fatale .

*** Larwyn, I tend to like the face-to-face the most of all.

Todah

[Mike_La]

Why email replaced most regular mail.

[Cliffmeister2000]

I don't believe I've ever hand written a letter. In college, when they marched the English class off to the auditorium with those little blue writing tablets and told us to write our sponaneous essays, I would carefully print the entire thing. If I wrote it, then even I could not read it! Fastest way I know of from an A to a D.

I envy people who can write cursive. As an under trained lefty, I never mastered the art.

[Miriam C.]

I don't believe I've ever hand written a letter. In college, when they marched the English class off to the auditorium with those little blue writing tablets and told us to write our sponaneous essays, I would carefully print the entire thing. If I wrote it, then even I could not read it! Fastest way I know of from an A to a D.

I envy people who can write cursive. As an under trained lefty, I never mastered the art.

I cannot print. I find printing tedious at best. Always hated it. Course my cursive isn't much better cause I get in a hurry. Love the puter and the spell checker........

[Larry Messaros]

All those points are valid.

Me, I still do a combination of formats.

I like typing because I can actually read my writing when I'm finished.
Emails to stay in touch with a little more depth.
Social networking sites, like Facebook, twitter etc to keep track what everyone is doing.
Cards for those special occasions.
Yearly Christmas newsletters to most family and friends with Christmas Cards.

Never hand written letters because of the legibility problem.

I do find that having everything on computer keeps me organized. Names, addresses, phone numbers, birthdays are simple to keep up-to-date.

[Todah Tear]

Well, it seems that cursive writing is going the way of the 8-Track tapes

Hey just for grins, lets conduct an unofficial study. If you have persons in your life who are under the age of 22, ask them to write this sentence in cursive, "See spot run under the apple tree! "
Note the following:
1) whether they were able to write in cursive
2) level of difficulty experienced in performing the task
a. w/ease
b. a little cumbersom, but do-able
c. struggled with throughout the whole experience
3) Ask them if they had ever been taught to write in cursive.
Todah

[Cliffmeister2000]

Well, it seems that cursive writing is going the way of the 8-Track tapes

Hey just for grins, lets conduct an unofficial study. If you have persons in your life who are under the age of 22, ask them to write this sentence in cursive, "See spot run under the apple tree! "
Note the following:
1) whether they were able to write in cursive
2) level of difficulty experienced in performing the task
a. w/ease
b. a little cumbersom, but do-able
c. struggled with throughout the whole experience

Todah

I would fail this test, I'm afraid.

[Todah Tear]

I would fail this test, I'm afraid.

Sorry Cliffmeister2000. Just so you know, the reason that I suggested the study was purely out of curiosity, not to make fun of anyone who can't write cursive. I think it would be very interesting to know if this form of communication is being phased out completely in a generation. When I was in elementary school, they taught math with an abacus. That got phased out here in America (I still have one because I like to collect math tools: slide rulers, abacus, calculators, etc.)

I think that cursive writing's becoming defunct would be a "line in the sand" worth recording for history sake. I think that it would run parallel to the decrease in personal identifiers, your personal signature for example, an eye witness accounts, fingerprints. It is ironic that the aforementioned things are on the decline in the wake of an increase the strength of DNA samples as representative of a person's identity.

Todah

[Cliffmeister2000]

I would fail this test, I'm afraid.

Sorry Cliffmeister2000. Just so you know, the reason that I suggested the study was purely out of curiosity, not to make fun of anyone who can't write cursive. I think it would be very interesting to know if this form of communication is being phased out completely in a generation. When I was in elementary school, they taught math with an abacus. That got phased out here in America (I still have one because I like to collect math tools: slide rulers, abacus, calculators, etc.)

I think that cursive writing's becoming defunct would be a "line in the sand" worth recording for history sake. I think that it would run parallel to the decrease in personal identifiers, your personal signature for example, an eye witness accounts, fingerprints. It is ironic that the aforementioned things are on the decline in the wake of an increase the strength of DNA samples as representative of a person's identity.

Todah

I used to write cursive, albeit poorly (I'm a Lefty, but I was once married to another Lefty with beautiful handwriting. She had a teacher who cared enough to show her how).

I sometimes think I need to sit down and practice. It should come back, like riding a bicycle.