Jim Fallows in the NYTimes explains why postal mail has not gone away, and won’t, even in the internet age.
“Two-thirds of all consumers do not expect to receive personal mail, but when they do, it makes their day,” it concluded. “This ‘hope’ keeps them coming back each day.” Even in this age of technology, according to the survey, 55 percent of Americans said they looked forward to discovering what each day’s mail might hold.
I’m in the majority, then. I look to email more often, but nothing beats a letter, in part because of its scarcity. I write that knowing I’m not a particularly good paper correspondent. My one significant outpouring of actual-ink-on-paper missives came while I was abroad in a foreign country, where forming the English words on paper was the only part of my day I allowed myself to think in English. I probably learned less of the foreign language than I would have otherwise, but the letters seemed important at the time.
The reasons for more mail in the internet age? Per Fallows, it’s
- Online retailers: think Netflix, paper catalogs, and eBay.
- Credit-card solicitations. Obviously, these have invaded email, too, but they must still work (statistically) in postal mail. I detest this part of the daily mail.
- More targeted advertising due to USPS “advances” in technology.
Isn’t technology grand?
My favorite stat?
Personal letters of all sorts, called “household to household” correspondence, account for less than 1 percent of the 100 billion pieces of first-class mail that the Postal Service handles each year.
Guess I should write a letter and be one in a billion.