The two people I chose to write to were my aunt and my multimedia high school teacher. Both had a great influence on me when I was younger by getting me more involved with the computer environment and helping me learn more about them.
I decided to email my old teacher because I felt that that would be the best way to get a hold of her considering she has a busy schedule with the number of classes she teaches. This choice was a pretty simple one for me since it would be a lot easier for the both of us to communicate back and forth in this method than with an actual letter. And since she’s on a computer most of her day anyways, it’s even more of a convenience for her. When I wrote the email, I made it semi-formal for the most part. I still used proper grammar and punctuation, etc… but I wrote in a more laid back manner, kind of how we talked when we were in person. I hadn’t talked to her in quite a while, so it was kind of weird using a lot of informal words, but a mix of the two styles seemed to be the best. I thought that if it was too formal, then it would just be like a business email and that’s not what I wanted. Even though I was thanking her, I still wanted the email to have a personal touch to it. I think that having a personal letter in most cases is better than just a direct, formal email. They convey more meaning and they’re more like a real conversation face to face. The email I sent wasn’t that long, but longer than a normal email that I would generally send. It looked longer on screen than I think it actually would be if I were to print it out. I sent the email out in the evening, but she did reply the next day and we were able to do a little catching up, so it was nice.
For my aunt, the letter seemed to be an appropriate choice since I’m used to sending her cards all of the time. We talk back and forth through letters and emails off and on, so either method would have been fine here. For the letter I wrote in a pretty similar matter as the email, but maybe a little more formal in relation to the formatting of the letter. I used my normal language that I commonly use online with a laid back tone. I’d say the letter seemed longer, but it could’ve just been because I had to actually write it all out. She lives on the east coast, so I knew the letter would take a while to get to her and I didn’t expect an actual letter in return to get here in time. But surprisingly, she replied back on the instant messenger. We both use AIM, so I guess she figured that that way of communicating was the best way for her to get back to me.
In my opinion, hand written letters aren’t the best way to communicate in today’s world, just because of the fact that they can get lost so easily. I like to keep documents and letters for a long time so that I can go back and read them if I want to, but with a letter, it means I have to find a place to store it where I won’t lose it. And it then means I have the burden of carrying that letter around if I want to keep it. Whereas in email, I have multiple accounts forwarded to another couple of accounts, so everything is backed up and organized making it really easy for me to refer to something somebody sent me ages ago. In the reading they discuss the use of emoticons and how effective they are in portraying one’s thoughts. For the letter and email we wrote for this week, oddly enough, I didn’t use any form of emoticon or expression. It just didn’t seem like the right place to be using them, even though they could have been used. Emoticons, I believe, are better used on message boards and other semi-anonymous places where people don’t really know who you are and don’t know the way you speak and act. But if you’re speaking with somebody you know in real life, then it doesn’t matter as much, because they know how you actually are.
February 4, 2009 at 7:32 pm
It’s interesting that while writing I wrote to non family members and you choose a family memeber in both cases the perston you would expect to reply by hand written note choose electronic communication. Even knowing that both do use email,I still expected a hand written note.
February 5, 2009 at 6:20 pm
You bring up the ease and practicality of email in storing and saving emails… ironically as I have spent the day fishing through an overloaded inbox which needs to be cleaned out! I love that with outlook and other email servers, you can easily search by word, date, person for an email you want to re-read, etc. With all my letters, they get stashed in a box, drawer or pile on my desk and while I love looking through them and re-reading them… the convenience factor is just not there.
February 6, 2009 at 10:24 am
Alex, I enjoyed reading your post about different letters. I found it interesting when you talked about how emails are generally shorter than snail mail letters. Personally I have always used email as a quick direct way to share something to another person. I don’t usually write very much in an email so I found it a little weird to use email to write a complete letter someone.