![]() I have been reading The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr. The cover claims it is a New York Times best seller and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. It is an interesting book and an all around good read. I will not review the book but want to share what Mr. Carr says in his sixth chapter about letter writing I think you will find his statement to be interesting. "To see how small changes in writers' assumptions and attitudes can eventually have a large effect on what they write, one need only glance at the history of correspondence. A personal letter written in, say, the nineteenth century bears little resemblance to an e-mail or text message written today. Our indulgence in the pleasure of informality and immediacy has led to a narrowing of expressiveness and a loss of eloquence." I suspect most of us who put pen to paper and write letters nod in agreement. We realize that the world is a quickly changing place and not all the changes are for the better. Expressiveness and eloquence have popularly been exchanged for informality and immediacy. We recognize this and regret the loss of civility this change represents. We know some things are worth preserving...or maybe restoring...and so we write letters.
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Letter Matters
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