Privacy: Snail mail best way to write
If you missed Sunday's edition of NBC's "Meet the Press" (as a print news junkie, I certainly did), you missed Jimmy Carter's NSA snub. Perhaps more to the point, his email snub. The former president - who is still very active as an unofficial diplomat and ardent peacemaker - declared on national TV that he prefers "snail mail" to email for confidential or sensitive communications.
Why? To avoid government snooping. Ironic, when you consider that the communications he's trying to keep private are government related.
"I believe if I send an email, it will be monitored," Carter frankly told NBC. Asked to comment on the nation's current surveillance policies, the 39th president said they are "abused by our own intelligence agencies."
OK, so privacy is the No. 1 reason to use snail mail more often. Yes, as a neo-Luddite I'm biased against the modern obsession with electronics, but there are other forgotten advantages to old-fashioned postal services:
Snail mail reduces mistakes. Ever fired off an email in the heat of passion (especially anger), then thought, "Uh-oh." Or read someone's upset reply, only then realizing you phrased something poorly, hastily, and easily misunderstood? Writing things with pen and paper takes a few beats longer, the eyes spend a few fractions of a second more gazing upon the words and our brains have the time to re-read and think, "Wait, maybe I can say that better."
Your employer owns your work emails. I just laugh when I hear someone complain about a boss "snooping" through their "personal" emails sent or received at work. Folks, it's the employer's computer and Internet connection. If you're at work, your email - any email - is not your exclusive property. Now an old-style letter stuck in your pocket or purse: that is more likely considered personal by law.
It's more exciting, romantic, intimate, sincere. Perhaps a psychologist out there might agree that when we engage more than one sense, when we can see the letter in the mailbox, have to carry it somewhere private, feel a little anticipation while opening it, and have that tangible reward of touching what was physically sent, somehow it just means more. With personal handwriting (in which changes can reveal emotion), there is a personal connection between sender and receiver no email can provide.
It can't be faked. Had your email or Facebook hijacked by an ex, or anyone with your password, someone immature who caused trouble by sending messages in your name? Another's handwriting is nearly impossible to fake.
Longer attention span. Admit it; more than once you've seen one of those long emails in your inbox and just skipped it. But take the same number of words and put it in a letter, and I'll bet you read every word. This doesn't just bode true for personal communications; Businessknowhow.com recommends snail mail over email when businesses want customers' full attention to product offers, and classified ads over email for certain service providers.
It's a keepsake. The love note Granddad wrote to the girl who became your grandma as he waited out the sounds of enemy fire in a trench during the Great War. The postcard from a loved one expressing joyful sentiments the very day you were born. The indiscernible scribbles from a 4-year-old written specially for Uncle Joe. It's just not the same as email in that treasure box generations later.
No, I never worked for the post office. I just miss, and worry about our increasing losses of, basic human intimacy. Convenience is eroding it.
Who's with me? Anyone else miss letters, and notice the declining quality with the increasing volume of meaningless words in our high-tech lives?
Sholeh Patrick is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network. Commiserate or comment at Sholeh@cdapress.com. Snail mail: 201 N. 2nd St. in Coeur d'Alene.