The written word (literally)

Back after a long hiatus from blogging!!

I was just ruminating a few days back- how many of us still continue to write letters? And by write, I mean hand-written, signed, sealed and mailed to the recipient. And how many of us still like to write, maintain and cherish our own personal diary?

In this digital era, most of us choose the email system, online messaging, or social networking sites like Facebook and Orkut, leaving a quick comment or scrap. But does that really cover the essence, if you will, of the communication, I wonder. From a more mundane standpoint, has the online communication system enriched our ability to communicate across boundaries, or has it slowly but surely eroded our ability to actually meaningfully communicate, along with the decay of our basic writing skills?

I still remember the first letter I wrote after I left home, in 2003. The content wasn’t great, the grammar still remains to be validated, but the recipient (in this case, my mom) felt like a million bucks when she received it. I am a firm believer in the power of the hand written word, simply because I feel there is a heady mix of emotions, thought and grammar blended in to provide that perfect communication package.

But I feel the strong urge to ask this question. Our nxt gen gonna write and tlk ths way n we k wt it or aren’t we obliged to bequeath the utility, value and power of writing a meaningful letter, note or essay to posterity?