In an age of tweets, snaps, posts and pins, letter writing is poised for a comeback, a Columbia University student journalist predicts.
A.J. Stoughton, a columnist for the Columbia Spectator student newspaper, has penned an essay on the unmatched power of thoughtfulness and conversation that comes from written correspondence.
“Maintaining a correspondence frees us of the temporal bounds of the text or Facebook message,” Stoughton writes.
In addition to helping family and friends stay in touch, letter writing can help people express emotion and effort, Stoughton notes.
“There is something intimate about letters,” he writes. “They take time; they take commitment. They demonstrate care and attention.”