Is The Pen Mightier Than the Keyboard?

• Lauren B
• 0
• on Dec 07, 2022

Though letter writing has almost died off as people have made the transition to electronic sources they’re one of the things that people treasure the most. Many claim that technology has given people the ability to communicate better, outside the confines of pen and paper. In reality, technology has just made society lazy and has caused letter writing to lose the reason why we treasure it so much, the intimacy and care it represents. 

Think about the last time you sat down and wrote a letter, chances are you won’t be able to remember when. Nowadays technology has taken over multiple aspects of life, including letter writing, which seemed untouchable. Traditionally, letters had been used to communicate for hundreds of years until the Internet and emails became popular in the late 1980s. Letters once stood as something to be valued but now most don’t even learn cursive (Last Time You Got a Letter). In fact, many adults say they haven’t written a letter in over five years (Letter Writing Statistics). In all, this is a disheartening result. Many love receiving a letter but that feeling is impossible to achieve if no one is writing any. 

When you receive a letter one of the first things you sense is the effort the sender put in. Something that takes root in your heart because that means you were worth the effort that someone took to personally write to you. After all, “There is an intrinsic integrity about letters that is lacking from other forms of written communication. Some of this has to do with the application of hand to paper . . . the effort to get things right the first time, the perceptive gathering of purpose.” (To the Letter, Simon Garfield). When you decide to write a letter it means you have to choose what paper you want it on, whether you want to write in pen or pencil and if it’s pens, colorful or plain. From there you have to decide what you want to write and then how to send it. Letter writing is all about the effort someone puts in. Effort is when you simply try to do something for someone else because you want to. When you look at a letter you can see every decision the sender made reflected back at you because that’s what letters do. You can see where they indented the page or crossed out a word, letters are imperfect making them incredibly endearing. When writing letters the sender is only writing them for one person, this creates a unified purpose. Since it’s only one person this makes the sender truly want to put in the effort to make the letter the best it can be, something that’s lost in the uniformity of emails and texts. It’s harder to show the effort you put in when you can only use the same basic font. A popular way to show this was adorning the letter in a fancy writing style known as calligraphy. To get “a mastery of calligraphy, which was possible for anyone willing to apply himself to learning one of its methods. . . The practice became part of American vernacular culture. . . By then [the mid-twentieth century], the practice of fine and ornamental handwriting—and, indeed, the teaching of penmanship itself—had largely come to an end . . . [due to] typewriters and then by computers.” (Credo Calligraphy). If you’ve ever seen calligraphy you know just how beautiful it can be, making any letter stand out from the rest with its elaborate design, calling out that you are worth its beauty. Though it may be an easy skill to master, it speaks to the effort someone wants to put in, for it’s still slightly harder than print. Calligraphy once was commonplace, always signifying something tremendous or important and this same sentiment was reflected in letters. You were the person in mind while the sender took the effort to carefully form the letters across the page. There you can see the heaviness of their strokes and the mistakes they made. All of which shows the lengths people are willing to go for the people they care about even if it’s just for a simple letter. Nowadays texts and emails don’t offer the beauty calligraphy provides. The most you can do is italicize or bold something and a font style is not the same as handwriting. Letter writing is a heartfelt art form, one that differs greatly from its other iterations. Letters express the sheer effort someone wishes to go through to ensure that the recipient knows they’re cared for. Texts and emails don’t utter that same level of concern, they’re perfunctory. 

Above all, physical letters serve as a reminder of how much you matter to someone. Simple words can elicit powerful emotions when put down on paper, something that’s completely lost in emails and text messages. Knowing that someone loves you and wants you to know that makes every letter even more special. Many wonder why, “The reason words written on paper are more appealing? [The answer;] They’re more heartfelt. A handwritten letter is like a gift – an artisan communique. You can hold it in your hand and feel the paper. You can keep it forever.” (You Don’t Write Letters But You Should). Though we know that people care for us, seeing the physical gesture allows us to see that love forever and never let it go. Intrinsically, handwritten letters are more thoughtful and caring than any email or text. People feel the need to show how much someone matters to them because when you write something down that makes it feel more permanent so you feel the pressure to write something that truly matters. Something that even years from now your recipient will pull out of a carefully kept box to look back upon. Letters, unlike emails and texts, aren’t fleeting and can’t be lost easily in your inbox or conversation, they’re something permanent that can exist beyond time. Handwritten words carry more meaning than anything else, even when you reread them there’s always something new to find within the weight of the words. Beyond that, each letter is unique. The words will be different, and the message changed but the love and care are always present for that’s something innate about letters. In emails and texts the emotion is lost in the quick-paced communication that technology demands, only letters have the power to emphasize how much someone means to you. They’re also an opportunity to write directly to one person since, “letters were ‘like a luxury, a gift-to be able to spend time thinking what to say to some-one and trying to send them something that will cheer up their day” (To the Letter, Simon Garfield). So much of our life is intertwined with others that finding something solely for yourself is rare, especially now that technology is everyone’s preferred medium. You can’t escape others when it’s a mass email being sent out or a group chat constantly chiming with new messages. You’re not often prompted to write down what someone means to you and when you are there’s a deep want in your heart to make sure that it shows just how much they’re loved. Thinking about it can cause a change of heart, a realization of something that you didn’t see before, all at the behest of making sure someone knows they’re loved. You get to intimately know that person when it’s just themselves, not the act they might put on when others are around. You get to understand them on a deeper level that emails and texts just wouldn’t allow. The intent of letters was more than checking in on their day and asking how they were, it was about making every word count in the deeper meaning. You have no way to know when you sometimes need the reminder of how much they matter so by including that heartfelt theme you have a guarantee that it will make someone feel better. Love is what marks hand-written letters different from any other form of communication, their only goal is to show someone how much they matter. 

No matter how sentimental physical letters are, it’s true, they’ll never match the ease and efficiency emails and texts provide. But in using technology you lose the very thing that letters gave you; love and the ability to show how much you care. Many say that email and texts are, “a fast and easy way to stay in touch with lots of people I’d otherwise write to only once in a while. . . The contents still talk about writing, family, what their kids are doing . . . But the main contrast is that the response time is so dramatically reduced, which I think changes the conversation.” (To the Letter, Simon Garfield). But can you tell someone you’re sorry for their loss in a text? Or on the other hand that someone died? Or that something awful has happened to you? No, you can’t. Yes, emails and texts are quick and can carry on a conversation in a few minutes that would take letters days but you must think of what you’re losing in the process. All the sincerity and deep connections that letters give are gone in the quick bursts it takes you to text. You can still communicate with almost as much care as you can with letters through emails and texts, that is true. Just because your medium has changed from paper to keyboard and screen doesn’t limit your conversation. You can still talk about anything you wish, your day to day life, your concerns, hopes, and dreams, and how much someone means to you but it’s still not the same. Would you treasure something in the same way or remember it with the clarity you would an actual letter,?No. Texts and emails can be lost but letters are lovingly kept. Emails and texts do give you the ability to talk to people that otherwise you simply wouldn’t but are those conversations something of merit or just basic pleasantries? The ease of communication using technology often gives way to surface-level messages while letters encourage more heartfelt ones. The text or email chain isn’t worth having if it’s just words that you would share with any stranger waiting for an event to start. Texts and emails make communication faster and give you the ability to communicate with anyone but they also eliminate the care that letters show. We often forget that in the time when tech

Technology has nearly taken over every aspect of our lives, from entertainment to our preferred method of communication but we’ve also lost a great deal due to it. Letters serve as a way to remind people how much they matter to you, how much they’re loved, and the effort you’re willing to go to, to make sure they know that. It means a great deal to receive a letter which makes it even more heartbreaking that no one writes them now. It suggests that letter writing as a whole could fall completely out of fashion. What if years from now, we stop sharing our true feelings completely, reverting to the stoicism of emails and text?

Works Cited

“Emotional Impact of Letters.” Letter Jacket Envelopes, 4 July 2018, https://letterjacketenvelopes.com/emotional-impact-of-letters/#:~:text=A%20letter%20not%20only%20has,and%20openness%20to%20a%20message. 

Schmid, Randolph E. “You Never Write Any More; Well, Hardly Anyone Does.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 3 Oct. 2011, https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna44760552. 

-, Leanne Potts, et al. “You Don’t Write Letters Anymore, but You Should.” Know How Studios, Know How Studios, 8 Feb. 2019, https://www.knowhowstudios.com/2019/02/you-dont-write-letters-anymore-but-you-should/. 

Gutierrez, Barbara. “When Was the Last Time You Received a Handwritten Letter?” University of Miami News and Events, University of Miami, 10 Aug. 2022, https://news.miami.edu/stories/2022/08/when-was-the-last-time-you-received-a-handwritten-letter.html. 

Backus, Fred. “Most Americans Haven’t Written a Personal Letter on Paper in over Five Years.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 11 Oct. 2021, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/most-americans-havent-written-a-personal-letter-on-paper-in-over-five-years/. 

“Calligraphy and Calligraphic Drawing: The Encyclopedia of American Folk Art – Credo Reference.” CALLIGRAPHY AND CALLIGRAPHIC DRAWING | The Encyclopedia of American Folk Art – Credo Reference, Routledge, https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/routfolkart/calligraphy_and_calligraphic_drawing/0. 

Garfield, Simon. To the Letter: A Celebration of the Lost Art of Letter Writing. Gotham Books, 2014.