{"id":239549,"date":"2025-02-15T11:39:14","date_gmt":"2025-02-15T11:39:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/15\/love-letters\/"},"modified":"2025-02-15T11:39:14","modified_gmt":"2025-02-15T11:39:14","slug":"love-letters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/15\/love-letters\/","title":{"rendered":"Love Letters"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Love<\/div>


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A friend told me he recently removed the email app from his phone. \u201cI used to love in the old days, coming home and checking email \u2014 there would be new messages!\u201d he rhapsodized. I felt the pang. Not only would there be new messages, but often, in those early days of email, they were actual electronic letters from friends, replete with emotional life updates and unspooling narratives. Before texting, email was an efficient way to communicate, and the way we communicated was in sentences, paragraphs, fully developed thoughts. We hadn\u2019t yet glimpsed the future where \u201ck\u201d or a thumbs-up emoji was considered communication.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m always excited when people tell me they\u2019ve deleted an app: another tiny reduction in the amount of time those in my orbit will be spending on their phones. Infinitesimal, perhaps, but moving in the right direction. We\u2019re tinkering with these devices that own our attention, we\u2019re taking back a little bit of control.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m particularly interested in modifications that can bring back some of the magic of pre-smartphone communication, when letter writing wasn\u2019t quaint and voice mails were miracles. I\u2019ve written about my nostalgia for phone booths,<\/a> recommending we borrow some of the parameters they provided and bring them into this century (say, containing our private conversations to private spaces).<\/p>\n

Even if we\u2019re nostalgic for the olden days, it\u2019s hard to reinstitute the old habits. Deleting email from your phone may release you from the compulsion to check it all the time, but that doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re going to come home to an inbox full of satisfying missives from your friends. Chances are, they\u2019ve been texting you all day, and your inbox is actually full of spam and bills.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n