More People Putting Pen To Paper

In Age Of E-Mail And IMs, The Handwritten Note Gains Currency

(AP)  Melissa Walker follows a ritual when she opens her daily mail. She goes through all the bills and the boring printed stuff first. Then, if it's one of the lucky days, she takes a deep breath and savors the prize: a handwritten, hand-addressed note from her dear friend in Wisconsin.

E-mail may have revolutionized our communication, making it faster, easier, more practical. But that doesn't mean the handwritten note is dead. Instead, the act of putting pen to paper seems to have gained in currency. Now, it's what you do to say something special, or heartfelt, or really important.

It's not a question of being e-mail ignorant. Walker, a history professor in South Carolina, spends lots of time on the Internet. But that's just the point: She could easily e-mail her college friend, Janet; instead they choose entertaining postcards and dash off a few personal notes, once or even a few times a week.

"It's so much more satisfying," she says, her voice evoking the delicious anticipation you felt as a child when the mailman was expected to bring something special.

"Many people mistakenly think a new technology cancels out an old one," says Judith Martin, who writes the syndicated Miss Manners column. People are charmed by handwritten letters, she says, precisely because they are rarer.

"You glance at an e-mail," Martin says. "You give more attention to a real letter."