Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Writing In The Age of Technology

I've recently been on another trip overseas.  I did my usual duty of sending postcards to family members from my vacation trip.  It was amazing to me to discover that when I asked someone who was of a young age of approximately 20-30 for the location of the nearest post box or post office they responded that they didn't know.  I went through this on occasion for the 2 weeks I was there.  I sent postcards on at least 4 different occasions and it was amazing to me to find that the young adults didn't utilize the post office.  A few of them admitted that they used texting to get messages out and receive them and they never mail anything out from via postal services.  After coming across enough of them I finally laughed and thought to myself that perhaps I should look for someone older who still writes and uses the post office. 

I've been home for about 4 days and yesterday a news article online caught my eye.   A news report gave a lengthy assessment that the US Postal Service is almost insolvent.  People are simply not using the post office as they did in older times.  The statistics are staggering.  The Postal Service has been operating in the red for so long it's almost criminal.  They can no longer rely on first class mail which is where writing letters to people comes into play.  They have to now relay on junk mail as their main source of survival.  The majority of the people almost exclusively use online or telephone messaging as a way of communication on a regular basis.  It is not unique to our country.  This is happening all around the world. 

As one who enjoys getting a letter or two in the mail I'm frightened at what will happen in the near future with our postal services.  The current proposal is to cut mail delivery down to 5 days instead of 6 days.  There is also pressure to contract out services to private companies and cut down on the workforce at the postal facilities.  

All I wonder is how many people out there are concerned about this?  Will the Postal Service become extinct? 

Everyday writing in this age of technology has resulted in emailing, instant messaging, smsing, twittering, etc instead of taking the time and pleasure to put some ink on some paper. 

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