COLUMN: Snail mail to e-mail, it's the words that matter

From Amanda Bergson-Shilcock's, "A Few Good Words," Fall '99 From Amanda Bergson-Shilcock's, "A Few Good Words," Fall '99Email doesn't get much respect. It's the medium of endless forwards -- clever quips, Clinton jokes, too-good-to-be-true stories. And its sheer speed makes it easy to add to the volume of stupid e-mails in your friend's inbox. At the same time, there's truth to the stereotype. Lame jokes use up plenty of bandwidth. And yes, there's something nice and, ok, personal, about getting a handwritten letter. But how many people really handwrite letters these days? Even people who don't own computers often use typewriters. As for that cute envelope and sealing wax, forget it. The post office won't accept wax-closed envelopes anymore; they gum up the sorting machines. Local postmarks are disappearing; now it's just "mailed from collection area 190" and a line of impersonal gray hash marks marching along the bottom of your envelope. Today, the postal service encourages people not to handwrite addresses. If letters have become just as bad, why do many still preach the virtues of snail mail? They are missing the point. Focusing on the medium is blinding us to the real issue -- the care and effort we put into our written exchanges. I'm as guilty as anyone of being cursory, whether in letters or e-mail. Last week I sent e-mail to six friends, two professors, 11 co-workers and dozens of customers. I also sent three items through the U.S. mail, two articles with attached notes and one short letter. All of these communiques were useful, direct and educational. (Well, except for the chicken joke.) But they weren't communication. Then I sat down to read an e-mail from one of my dearest friends. She lives in Seattle. We met on-line almost eight years ago and since have shared numerous in-person visits and thousands of pages of correspondence. For a long time she was my self-righteous justification for e-mail: See, it's just as good as a letter. In fact, it is a letter. Back then, I used e-mail only for things worth saying and reading. But the busier my life got -- work, school, homework -- the less time I spent on e-mail. It became hurried notes and then forwarded jokes or articles, perhaps with a line or two of commentary. My friend grew busier too but I still received long outpourings from her. I sat at my computer the other night and looked at her latest missive. I remembered Sunday's "Sally Forth" comic strip, with the same old punchline -- a letter is more personal. For the first time, I really thought about it. It isn't the handwriting the makes a letter personal or the method of delivery that makes e-mail impersonal. It's the writer's investment. Technology takes the blame because it really is easier to carbon-copy the joke of the day to a 40-person group than it is to send a physical clipping to even one person. But when I spend an hour at my Mac, typing news about my life or reactions to my friend's last e-mail, that's communication. Whether we're dissecting When Harry Met Sally or discussing our jobs, we're sharing ideas and insight. E-mail is a tool, not a value system. Although its immediacy can lead to two-line notes and ungrammatical sentences, it can also transmit lengthy, literate sagas. In its own way, e-mail is just as capable of building connections between human beings as the pen and paper. Reading my friend's long, detailed e-mail the other night confirmed my theory. She related an amusing tale of woe involving a bicycle and a ferry ride. Richly drawn, it even included dialogue. She shifted into a description of her latest field of study and turned serious as she debated how to handle a problem that had cropped up. Too soon I scrolled to the end. I sat for a minute, then opened a new file. And I wrote an e-mail.

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