Return to sender: writers mourn loss of physical letters as Australia Post contemplates decline
The Guardian
The postal service predicts letters will become ‘peripheral’ as mass communication further shifts to digital – to the regret of some.
Before email put them at risk and smartphones became an existential threat, handwritten letters played a vital role in everyday life. They could be used to declare love to a partner, or convey news of a tragedy. They united penpals from around the world. Sometimes, grandma slipped money into them. (...)
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‘Letter writing is an expression that is necessary for wellbeing’ says Melanie Knight, an arts therapist and avid letter writer from Melbourne. Photograph: Ingo Oeland/Alamy.
The postal service expects the “unstoppable decline” will gather pace, making letters a peripheral form of communication by 2030.
Knight, an expressive arts therapist who runs creative letter-writing workshops, says society will be poorer for its demise.
“Even though there’s thousands of emojis, [digital communication] is so homogeneous,” Knight says. (...)
Peter Slattery, a research fellow at Monash University, says he sees a future role for physical letters even if more generic correspondence goes digital.
“Both in the business world and the personal world, letters will be associated with high-value, selected communication and more of the mass communication will switch to digital,” says Slattery, who writes on behavioural science.
“People value getting a letter a lot more; they know it takes more effort and feels more tangible.” (...)
Some fear the transient nature of digital communication means future generations will miss out on having documented insight into the minds of notable figures, such as the thoughts contained in archived love letters from Johnny Cash to June Carter, Napoleon to Josephine and Elizabeth Taylor to Richard Burton.
“Letters are so precious, they can give a really personal lens into a period of time through lived experience,” says Knight.
“I hope we don’t lose that. What it’s like to walk down the driveway and open the mailbox and find a personal letter there – it’s just thrilling.”
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