In an age like ours, which is not given to letter-writing, we forget what an important part it used to play in people’s lives. ~Anatole Broyard
A few years ago, I came across a list in the Reader’s Digest of 8 things being killed by the Internet. Twelve years ago, I wrote a blog post about it. Tonight I decided to rewrite it and share the piece again, especially since I wrote the original post as I was beginning to work on my story, Angel Sister. So, since we’ve been on a Rosey Corner story memory kick, this seemed perfect.
So here are the eight things that the Reader’s Digest article named.
- Polite disagreement
- Memory
- Daydreaming
- Waiting a day for sports scores
- Footnotes
- Leaving your desk for lunch
- Concentration
- Letter writing.
So, what do you think? Are these things being killed off by our fascination with the internet?
How about memory? I have to admit I thought my memory was just strained and not exactly completely killed off by too many years or too many things to remember. Sometimes I just think all my circuits are overloaded. Then again, it may be I’ve stuffed too many memories in too many file cabinets in my brain without proper organization. There are several things I could blame my not quite as sharp as it used to be memory on, but how nice to discover, it’s not my fault. It’s the internet. What a relief!
And do you think all those talk shows on television and the radio are part of the reason we can’t seem to disagree politely these days? No ratings boost without controversy.
Concentration? What’s with that? I’d figure it out, but checking my Facebook page keeps distracting me. I might miss something out there on the web. 🙂
But daydreaming? Hold everything on that one. No way am I going to let anything kill off my daydreaming. Daydreaming is essential to a person’s well being, especially a writer’s well being. My idea bank needs some daydreaming time. Oh, the things we can imagine or dream up. The internet might even give us even more amazing reasons to do a little daydreaming. Writers aren’t the only daydreamers in the world. As long as there are sunny days with kids wishing school was out and as long as there as romance is in the air, people will be doing some daydreaming, don’t you think?
Oh, and I’m all for instant sport scores. I’ve been known to check the score during a game when I can’t actually watch.
Ah, but letter writing. Sadly, they might be right about the letter writing. It may be a dying art with everybody shooting messages across cyberspace without having to lick any stamps. (Oops! Showing my age there. I guess I should say attach when talking about those stamps. Some of you youngsters might never remember licking stamps.) Okay, back to business. I’m sure when telephones came along, people said letters would be a thing of the past. No doubt letter writing did take a hit. But letters still flew between people then. Long distance calls were expensive. A stamp was cheap and letters were a great way to keep in touch. Maybe even stoke a love’s flame with sweet words written on paper and sealed in an envelope with a kiss. Nowadays, many of us still send cards. Some of those cards have our feelings expressed in perfect words written by someone else. Other cards even sing to us, but how often do we sit down and write a letter? And yet, don’t you love getting a letter in the mail? An old fashioned full of news letter just to you. We’re so starved for letters that we embrace even the few words someone might scribble on a card.
When I’m researching a time period, I feel as if I’ve received a gift when I come across a book with actual letters written by someone who lived in that time. Back when I was researching WW I for my book, Angel Sister, I found a book of letters written by a Kentucky soldier to his wife. That turned out to be perfect material for me to know how to share Victor’s war experiences in a realistic way in that dual time story.
Now, unless somebody is printing out their e-mail messages or saving them, that kind of thing may be lost to future generations. Of course a lot is saved out here on the net. So much that the sheer number of links when you do a search for something can be overwhelming. But will those messages we speed back and forth on e-mail or texting survive the test of time the way a written letter might?
Then again, blogs abound out on the net. Electronic letters. That’s what this is–a letter to you. So maybe there will be more material than ever before. Just in a different format.
What do you think is being killed off by the internet? Books? Brick and mortar bookstores? Music CDs? Secrets? Privacy?
I don’t know about any of that. I just know I’m not about to let the internet kill off my daydreaming. Or wool gathering. I’ve got a new bunch of characters to dream up.
Do you still write letters?
So what do you think is being killed off by the internet? Or which of the list do you agree with or disagree with?
P.S. Connie Lee won a copy of Angel Sister in my blog fast giveaway last week.
Comments 14
I think texting on phones has killed letter writing more than the internet! I have written regularly to two aunts for more than 50 years. One of them passed away last week. She was in assisted living no longer able to write to me but for many years, I think she answered my letters the day she received them. I could not stay caught up! I find it easier to express myself when writing than when talking.
Author
Texting is fine, Joan, but in my mind, it can never truly replace a letter. Everything is short and quick in a text although it is fun to share pictures so easily. But in a letter you can share more feelings and more of your life. For years, I wrote a letter every week to a dear lady in our church who was no longer able to attend services due to her age and health. I would mail it out on Monday morning and her daughter said she’d practically be waiting by the mailbox on Tuesday because most in town letters only took a day to be delivered at that time. If I didn’t get it in the mail on Monday, she’d get worried that something was wrong with me when the letter was late. I never really wrote anything all that important. Just a little about whatever had happened at church and the sermon Scripture, but those letters meant so much to her. And to me too. Her handwriting was shaky but now and again she would write me a note. I treasured those letters and still have some of them.
Ann, I believe in mailing greeting cards or handwritten notes when the occasion calls for a recognition or a written expression of sentiment. I have been making greeting cards for more than 20 years and enjoy putting a personal touch on a card for a particular person. And since covid began keeping people at home I have stepped up my card-making and mailing. There have been many birthdays, some sympathy cards, a few to acknowledge visitors to our church services, and some just plain “thinking of you” or congratulations. Only if I don’t have an address for someone does that person get a birthday or anniversary greeting on the internet. I have discovered there are many people who have taken up this creative way of keeping in touch with friends. As to other ways the internet has interfered with life in recent years that is not on your list, I believe more and more people are staying home from church and relying not only on television but also now on the internet for live church services. We can only encourage them to return when they are able and pray that this is a temporary arrangement for them.
Author
You are right, Maria. Covid has changed the way many people see or participate in church. We had members fearful of coming during the year last year and still not coming now even though nearly all of our members have received the vaccine. I did hear some say that the video services have reached new people who might not have attended services. But I do like the fellowship of in person church.
It’s lovely that you make and send so many cards. I am sure that those cards bring smiles and encouragement to those lucky enough to get one.
Thank you Ann for the chance to win a copy of Angel Sister, I am really looking forward to reading it!
I agree that the internet has killed letter writing, but I don’t think it is such a bad idea. I used to write a few letters to my cousins and I would hate to make a mistake with an ink pen and try to erase, sometimes starting the whole letter over. The same thing with a typewriter, make a mistake and have to erase. It’s so easy to correct a mistake when you are typing on a computer. However, I do have some treasured letters I have kept in a drawer for 50 years from my husband in his handwriting I would hate to do away with. I do see the value of a handwritten letter also.
Author
There is good and bad to everything, Connie. You are so right about mistakes being so much easier to correct on a computer. I started out writing books on a typewriter. I struggled making that clean copy to send out to the publishing companies. Now almost everything is digital. I did have an editor who only liked reading paper copies of the books she worked on. But she was old school. A writer these days who is old school has to learn new ways.
I like when I run across letters or notes from loved ones who have gone on. My mother or my grandmother. It’s almost like seeing their smiles again.
I believe greeting cards are taking a hit also, I loved receiving Birthday and Christmas cards but now they are dwindling’ and being replaced by the internet At Christmas they were always displayed by putting gift wrap on a door and then attaching the cards, my kids loved to read them and they looked festive. How things have changed.
Author
I miss Christmas cards too, Donna. I still get some but as you say, not the way it used to be. I think the higher postage prices plays a part in that. And I’ve heard the cost of mailing a letter is going up again. Plus, some greeting cards are expensive too. It always surprises me how people can pay more for a greeting card than a book without thinking twice but sometimes thinking books are priced too high.
I talked about how the packhorse librarians made bookmarks and special gifts about of greeting cards in my story. I still send greeting cards, but I do have to admit that I try to buy the ones that aren’t that expensive.
We lost my grandmother in January to Covid. She was in a nursing home and we couldn’t see her for all those months. One of my aunts was thankfully allowed in the night before she passed for a quick visit. Afterward, I sat looking at a bible she gave me when I turned 18. She had written my name in it and why it was given, etc. I looked at her handwriting that I knew so well and thought about how it is so rare these days for people to actually write to each other. It is sad that it is being lost. I am so thankful to have my Bible and cards written by her and others that we have lost. We often send cards to people, but I am not sure when I have last written an actual letter to someone. I have notes my husband and I wrote to each other when we were first together. Now we send each other little text of love when he is working, which is still nice-but not quite the same. We still do cards at birthdays and our anniversary, so I guess we haven’t let technology take over completely. 🙂
Author
I wonder how many people have a Bible given them by their grandmother. I don’t, but my husband does and he treasures it. I’ve given all my grandkids a Bible at Christmas when they were old enough to read it, but maybe I should think about giving them a Bible when they graduate high school the way my husband’s grandmother did.
It’s interesting what you say about seeing the writing of other people. At one time I’m sure most family members instantly recognized their loved ones writing on envelopes or wherever. I can’t say that I would recognize any of my grandkids writing. Everything is text driven. Things change and in the process we sometimes gain some good things while losing some good things too.
I used to be a letter writer, but I’ll admit that I now write email updates weekly to my one remaining sister and a best friend–email updates that would have been included in letters if I weren’t writing email updates in this modern world. When each member of my birth family was still living, I typed a master letter to my mother with two carbon copies to my sisters each week or two. My mother and sisters would do the same. I do miss that.
Author
Those letters were a great way to keep in contact, Suzanne! But your e-mails are good too and maybe because it is a little easier to fire up the computer, tablet or phone and compose those e-mails, you do continue to stay in touch. But still, I think that letter in hand is somehow different and as you say, something to miss.
My handwriting has always been terrible, so being able to send letters via the computer is a good thing for me, and for anyone who doesn’t have to try to my dreadful writing! And I enjoy sending choosing and sending e-cards too. I don’t disagree with that Reader’s Digest list, but most of it doesn’t really apply to me so I’m not going to fret about it. As long as I can still read, that’s what matters to me, and your books are always on my bookshelf waiting to be enjoyed!
Author
I like that, Patricia. You saying nothing about any of this is to fret about. Things do change. Some things for the better. Some things maybe not so better. But we change too. I haven’t gotten into e-cards although I’ve received a few. It may be the way to go with the way postage keeps rising. And I’m with you about reading. The internet has made that easier in a lot of ways too. So glad my books are on your bookshelf. I appreciate that.