by Lynsey Brewer

Created on: October 22, 2008   Last Updated: September 18, 2009

There is something special about sending or receiving a letter that an email could never live up to. I still get excited or wait expectantly when I receive a letter or know that I am to receive one soon. These days, email seems to have replaced letters on a huge scale, resulting in a huge chain of reactions that seem to sneak by undetected.

As a kid growing up, my mom made me sit down every Monday, choose a distant relative or close friend, and write them a letter. Back then this seemed like a mere routine in my home-school program, but now it this simple act seems to hold much more meaning for me. Some of my more "modern" friends seem to blow a letter off as old-fashioned and could care less whether I send them one in the mail or not. However, my older relatives such as my grandparents get excited when receiving a letter from me and pester me when I have not sent one in a while. The older generation remembers the importance of more personal communication and holds onto it, despite the cultural and technological changes around them.

Letter writing for me was always a formal affair. Every word had to be spelled perfectly, and every sentence punctuated as if I were writing an academic paper. My mom used to say "you don't want you relatives thinking you're illiterate do you?" By the time I began public school in the eighth grade, my reading and writing skills were so far ahead of everyone else's that I was put in advanced English classes and still found it incredibly easy. One of my teachers once asked me, "what do you do to practice your writing?" I replied "I write letters." As blown off and forgotten as this simple act is, it can be highly educational. I was always told to write my letters in cursive. Nowdays, my peers are studying cursive for their SAT because they forgot how to use it.

My last point as to why letter writing is so important is that it seems much more personal and heartfelt then email. A letter tells someone "I've been thinking about you lately and I felt like taking the extra time to sit down and send you something created with my own hands." An email seems more routine, like a daily chore or activity that you do once, maybe twice a day at the same time. I don't think email is a bad thing. I use it now and then for those quick messages when you have no time on your hands, but taking the extra time to let someone know you care makes not only the receiver but the sender feel much better about them-self.

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