Writing letters, part 2

While looking for some other info this morning, I came across this article from EContent that opens with:

Parents: Ask your teenager to write a "get well" letter to Aunt Edith who is confined to a bed at a nursing home. They are probably looking at you like you just asked them to explain Kepler's Third Law. "C'mon mom, nobody writes letters anymore," they whine. "They're not cool."

While it may be a question of changing social mores, more than likely it is the way today's young people were raised in relation to technology. "The next generation was born digital," according R.J. Pittman, CEO, president, director, and co-founder of Groxis, Inc., who gave the opening keynote at the 2006 annual NFAIS Conference in Philadelphia. The "next generation," he describes, was raised communicating through cell phone, either voice or text messaging. The audacity you have to suggest they (gasp!) actually pick up a pen to communicate is nothing short of alarming. It simply isn't as natural for them to put their thoughts down on paper in a clearly written missive, get an envelope, address it, stamp it, and trudge out to a mail box than it is to (duh!) dash off a text message and hit Send. Better immediate information than perfectly penned, right?

which reminded me of my post (ironically published just a week before this EContent article) on writing letters inspired from reading an article in Newsweek about writing letters and an experience my wife and I had about...writing letters.