I've been thinking about correspondence - particularly letter-writing - fairly often during the last couple of years. Many of the friends with whom I used to correspond by letter have turned to e-mail, Facebook, and the phone (a triumverate I term "the dark side" in gloomier moments), and I've been puzzling out my feelings about this change in media. Why do I feel so sad that my friends don't write anymore? Why do I still prefer letters to anything else and persist in writing them? How does a letter writing relationship differ from one based on the phone or e-mail or Facebook? What does the trend away from letter writing say about current culture, and dictate how historians of the future might "read" us?
I'm hoping to explore some of these questions in an exhibit at MP in the coming months, but in the meantime, here's an interesting article on friendship and Facebook. If you have any thoughts about any of the above that you'd like to share, please comment here or send me an e-mail (tjones at mindport dot org) or letter! I'd be delighted to hear them.
Faux Friendship by William Deresiewicz.
T. Jones
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