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I saw on the news a few weeks ago that the Philippine Postal Corporation, a government owned corporation that provides postal services in my country, launched a writing contest about the importance of handwritten letters to an individual. Letters which are delivered thru snail mail have declined for the past years, thus affecting the agency in terms of profit.

Technology advancement including mobile phone texting and access to Internet via email, instant messaging on Facebook, Gmail and Twitter has overshadowed the old habits of letter-writing. That is why the agency has come up a campaign to encourage people to use the postal services in sending their letters and greeting cards to their loved ones. As a blogger myself, I find this idea as a challenging opportunity to everyone especially to the students that tend to forget the essence of expressing their thoughts using a pen and paper.

I learned online that this campaign was also being observed and practiced in many countries particularly in educational institutions. Teachers usually inspire their students to be involved in writing contests. However, many students are still having a difficult time composing an essay because of gadget dependency. They rely too much on texts and chat abbreviations that result to poor writing skills.

On the other hand, I'm sure you'd agree with me that handwritten letters from friends and family are much exciting to read than the ordinary email message. These personal letters could be full of emotions, excitement and sincerity. They are like imprints to the heart, as well as serve as a remembrance to the recipient. I strongly believe that through this activity, a person can be creative and prolific as much as he or she wants to. As we all know, in ancient history letters were used as a powerful weapon to influence the masses. In my country, letters ( along with books and newspaper publications) were also used as instruments by our national heroes to revolt against colonialism.

While we keep ourselves busy most of the time, don't you think it'd be wise to write a letter (or even a blog) once in a while? If we get used to this idea or practice, it would serve as our own advantage especially when the time comes that we need to make a request, a complaint or a commendation to other people. Most importantly, if we are knowledgeable with this skill, it'd help us ace during job-hunting and report writing. Of course, we must always try to follow the rules of proper capitalization, spelling, punctuation and paragraphing to make our letters appealing and impressive.

In your opinion, do you think handwritten letters would be able to regain its popularity in the future? Why?

Share your thoughts on the comment section below. Thank you for reading my blog. Happy writing! :)

Sources:

Wikipedia

Philpost