Is the Art of Hand Written Letters done
Ask yourself this, when really was the last time you picked up a pen and wrote out a whole page or pages of handwritten letters.
I took notice of just how long it has been since I physically wrote a letter, and let me say this, my handwriting was bad prior, it’s a whole lot worse now. My coordination was off, spelling was another matter and all those special word processing features I’d gotten use to on computers weren’t available.
The cliché, what did we do before raced across my mind and I began to think really when was the last time I received a handwritten letter from anyone.
Other than short notes, and quick scribbles the time honored tradition of handwritten letters I believe has come to or is coming to an end. Its end isn’t abrupt, the clock has been ticking for some time now.
When the typewriter had its first beginnings the fuse had been lit for the demise of pen to paper.
The typewriter was designed to make letter writing more accommodating to both business and government,.
It allowed for faster paperwork processing, but the personal business of writing letters still belonged to the master of pen and paper. Not many could afford a typewriter, a pen was much cheaper, didn’t need replacement parts or to be maintained.
As time wore on vast improvements were made to the typewriter, erasable error correction ribbons were introduced, faster, better mechanics on the keyboard allowed for smoother typing, but it would still take a long time for many to adopt the typewriter as part of their home implements.
Enter the computer and its continually advancing word processing software. First used mainly by government and business organizations, it would take several years to make its way into the everyday use by home users. Commodore, IBM and Apple along with a list of other computer makers would enter the foray and battle for home users, offering what they hoped would be most helpful to their needs.
As computer prices and software came down, home use became more widespread, but the only thing lacking were printers that could match the font style of a handwritten letter, dot matrix printers just couldn’t cut it. The pen was safe, for now.
The fuse shortened with each passing year and as improvements came fast for word processing software, printer manufacturers began to catch on they began improving printer functions, from fonts to photos, print quality came to the forefront, but cost of printers were still prohibitive to many home users at large.
Once users became acclimated to the use of computers, the benefits of writing letters on the computer became much more apparent, the features could made writing so much easier than any pen or paper could match, spell checking, a cadre of fonts to choose from, underlining and bold functions, thesaurus, insert functions for graphics, charts, and photos, this all contributed to greater usage of computers by both young and old.
The fuse gets shorter.
Smart phones, tablet PC’s put the power of word processing into many more hands, removing pens from pockets. Throw in scanning functions, blue tooth file transfers and various apps, digitize signatures and I would be shocked to find people still using pens.
See for yourself ask someone, a complete stranger or someone you know for a pen next time your walking down the street and see how many still carry them. Like the phone booth disappearing from street corners, pens in corner stores could shortly be a thing of the past.