Wow, the world has changed. And people growing up in the past 10 years don’t even know what has been left behind.

I recently read through a large stack of old letters I had stored for a *very* long time and was struck by how the kinds of sentiments expressed in those letters are missing from our lives today. Some of the letters were from friends telling me how/what they were feeling, what they were going through–personal sharing both negative and positive. Not the ‘curating’ you find on Facebook, where people tend to present themselves in a certain way, and not the quicker and more impersonal correspondence you get via email. In these letters received via postal mail it was clear that time and thought and care were taken in their writing. It’s much more personal and intimate to share thoughts and feelings via postal mail than email, while writing rather than typing, in my opinion. And with email, there are possibly hundreds of other emails also bombarding your attention along with other competing distractions on the internet; emails are not distinguished by their uniqueness.

I posted a few comments from senders of my photo cards on a Testimonials page that highlight some of what is missing from email communication. Sending a hand-written note shows someone took time and it shows thought (and bonus that the card has an image of beauty or is unique). And who doesn’t like to get something in the mail other than an ad or a bill? What have we lost by typing on a keyboard and clicking a ‘send’ button, something we often do hundreds of times a day? What is being left behind when we communicate through a machine?