Letter writing becomes thing of past in digital age

By Mehboob Inamdar

Aurangabad, Aug 31:

Letter writing was one of the few ways to be in touch with relatives, family members and friends until two and half decades ago.

People used to wait for days to receive letters from their beloved ones. The telephone became public gradually. Despite this, people used to sit and write letters. Mobile was introduced and things started changing. With the arrival of Information and Community Technology (ICT), letter writing on paper has become a thing of the past because of its speed. Those who witnessed letter writing era say it was a moment of joy to get a letter and it was celebration time in villages if somebody receives it. Today’s young generation gets messages faster than ever but does not know about the emotion of letters received through post.

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Joy & happiness lost because fast msg delivery

A prominent education Dr Afsar Khan said that people used to wait for the postman to deliver a letter from their relatives before the Internet.

“On getting the letter from the postman - there used to be celebrations and people used to go to schoolmaster to get the letter read. But the process was slow. It used to travel at snail’s pace and used to reach in a week’s time,” he said.

Dr Khan said after the Internet’s availability, letters reach faster compared to the pre-internet period.

“But the joy and happiness which people used to get in pre-internet period is almost lost. WhatsApp messages are at fingertips and the facility has two-way communication whereas in pre-internet and wi-fi period, the communication was one way,” he asserted.

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People’s life changed in digital age

Aishwarya Rajendrakumar Tak, a city girl studying at Indian Institute of Mass Communication, said that people's way of life with the changing world also changed.

“Do we write letters filled with emotions like that door in the door of a digital era today?

In the pre-Internet era, many hopefuls would have made this letter a way to express their heart to their girlfriend.

In today’s digital age, we use tools like e-mail, Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram instead of letter writing on paper.

The message reaches our loved ones in a few seconds, but there is no such thing as long ago, which was waiting for someone's message. No matter how fast we become in the digital world, but we will not be able to match the letters filled with the same things as before,” she said.