HANDWRITING VS. E-MAIL

I have just been reading on Typophile a forum post regarding Handwriting vs. E-mail and the implications each gives. What is really the best way to communicate in a written way, by hand or using type. It is an interesting aspect of everyday life, we receive e-mails constantly, and letters often but they are rarely good. 

I do not think you can possibly get the same intimate feeling of receiving a personal letter than an e-mail. E-mails are waste, they are intangible and due to the wide use of them now commercially they dehumanise. Letters would be more cherished simply for the opposite, the reader can know that somebody has actually gone to the effort to produce the letter, that the letter has been created using the tangible world.

There are two reasons why the use of handwriting in a letter can be seen to be so effective, and create such a warmth,

Number 1

Handwriting is getting more and more rare, especially the use of someone else reading your handwriting, by receiving a letter that is handwritten it gives the letter value.

Number 2

Everyone's handwriting is different, and everyones handwriting changes from letter to letter.

BUT, I think handwriting is good sure, but by no means does that mean I dislike type. I wish there was a perfect balance of type and handwriting, to live together in harmony. I don't want to see handwriting die.

A letter is not just the written but along with the letter comes the texture, the color, the size, the smell, even the noise from the paper, there is also the envelop you need to open, there are the stamps. All of these cannot be compared with something found on the screen. The letter has such variables to it, such small matters would be different for each letter creating the value of the letter again to be so much more. This is opposed to the systematic routine of logging into your e-mails, viewing your inbox to click on an e-mail depending whether or not you even want to look at or read it. With two clicks the e-mail can be deleted.

There is one important difference between the handwritten and typed that affects us all. It is simply because of the letter, that is a tangible object it is tactile which allows us to have a human interaction with the object and and the reader. By typing, you have the control to change and delete anything you write, it can disappear. This is very different to work on paper, your handwriting is forever varying, whether it changes drastically from word to word or subtle differences, human error can be seen in character formation, or movement on the page. These are all subtle errors but obviously we are all exactly the same, it means nothing except a level of communication. We can accept these on a human level, the computer loses all sense of the person, this cannot be retrieved, however this does call for certain situations. There are plenty of  things that will always be better typed for example more serious, official matters where warmth and a personal touch is not needed, it is not relevant.