In an age like ours, which is not given to letter-writing, we forget what an important part it used to play in people’s lives. ~Anatole Broyard
A few years ago, I came across a list in the Reader’s Digest of 8 things being killed by the Internet. Twelve years ago, I wrote a blog post about it. Tonight I decided to rewrite it and share the piece again, especially since I wrote the original post as I was beginning to work on my story, Angel Sister. So, since we’ve been on a Rosey Corner story memory kick, this seemed perfect.
So here are the eight things that the Reader’s Digest article named.
- Polite disagreement
- Memory
- Daydreaming
- Waiting a day for sports scores
- Footnotes
- Leaving your desk for lunch
- Concentration
- Letter writing.
So, what do you think? Are these things being killed off by our fascination with the internet?
How about memory? I have to admit I thought my memory was just strained and not exactly completely killed off by too many years or too many things to remember. Sometimes I just think all my circuits are overloaded. Then again, it may be I’ve stuffed too many memories in too many file cabinets in my brain without proper organization. There are several things I could blame my not quite as sharp as it used to be memory on, but how nice to discover, it’s not my fault. It’s the internet. What a relief!
And do you think all those talk shows on television and the radio are part of the reason we can’t seem to disagree politely these days? No ratings boost without controversy.
Concentration? What’s with that? I’d figure it out, but checking my Facebook page keeps distracting me. I might miss something out there on the web. 
But daydreaming? Hold everything on that one. No way am I going to let anything kill off my daydreaming. Daydreaming is essential to a person’s well being, especially a writer’s well being. My idea bank needs some daydreaming time. Oh, the things we can imagine or dream up. The internet might even give us even more amazing reasons to do a little daydreaming. Writers aren’t the only daydreamers in the world. As long as there are sunny days with kids wishing school was out and as long as there as romance is in the air, people will be doing some daydreaming, don’t you think?
Oh, and I’m all for instant sport scores. I’ve been known to check the score during a game when I can’t actually watch.
Ah, but letter writing. Sadly, they might be right about the letter writing. It may be a dying art with everybody shooting messages across cyberspace without having to lick any stamps. (Oops! Showing my age there. I guess I should say attach when talking about those stamps. Some of you youngsters might never remember licking stamps.) Okay, back to business. I’m sure when telephones came along, people said letters would be a thing of the past. No doubt letter writing did take a hit. But letters still flew between people then. Long distance calls were expensive. A stamp was cheap and letters were a great way to keep in touch. Maybe even stoke a love’s flame with sweet words written on paper and sealed in an envelope with a kiss. Nowadays, many of us still send cards. Some of those cards have our feelings expressed in perfect words written by someone else. Other cards even sing to us, but how often do we sit down and write a letter? And yet, don’t you love getting a letter in the mail? An old fashioned full of news letter just to you. We’re so starved for letters that we embrace even the few words someone might scribble on a card.
When I’m researching a time period, I feel as if I’ve received a gift when I come across a book with actual letters written by someone who lived in that time. Back when I was researching WW I for my book, Angel Sister, I found a book of letters written by a Kentucky soldier to his wife. That turned out to be perfect material for me to know how to share Victor’s war experiences in a realistic way in that dual time story.
Now, unless somebody is printing out their e-mail messages or saving them, that kind of thing may be lost to future generations. Of course a lot is saved out here on the net. So much that the sheer number of links when you do a search for something can be overwhelming. But will those messages we speed back and forth on e-mail or texting survive the test of time the way a written letter might?
Then again, blogs abound out on the net. Electronic letters. That’s what this is–a letter to you. So maybe there will be more material than ever before. Just in a different format.
What do you think is being killed off by the internet? Books? Brick and mortar bookstores? Music CDs? Secrets? Privacy?
I don’t know about any of that. I just know I’m not about to let the internet kill off my daydreaming. Or wool gathering. I’ve got a new bunch of characters to dream up.
Do you still write letters?
So what do you think is being killed off by the internet? Or which of the list do you agree with or disagree with?
P.S. Connie Lee won a copy of Angel Sister in my blog fast giveaway last week.