The art of writing a letter to a family member or friend is a thing of the past. Writing a letter and mailing it to someone has become very rare indeed.

Handwritten correspondence between individuals has become a thing of the past.

With email, social media and other internet platforms – communicating by letter just doesn’t happen much. Instead, it is easier for someone to whip out a quick email, Facebook Messenger note, or tweet a message to someone these days.

The younger generation has no idea how important letters were back in the day.

If you are like me, you probably recall learning at an early age in grade school the proper way to write a letter. Our teachers taught us the correct way to address an envelope.

I bet if you ask someone in the younger generation to do this today they would hardly know where to begin.

Not only would they probably not know how to write a letter, address the envelope and mail it via the U.S. Postal Service, but their grammar and spelling may not be very good either.

Now this is not everyone in the current generation.

But the way they write on social media with abbreviations of using the letter “U” for you or “R” for the word are, the habits of using the computer have hurt their communication skills.

Of course they have things that we didn’t have—computers with spell check, grammar check and other ways to help them write a paper or letter.

In a Newsweek article, I found this statement, “For hundreds of years, or at least since pens and paper became commonplace, people who wanted to get in touch with other people separated by distance had only one way to do it: they wrote letters, the only means of long-distance communication, at least until the invention of the telegraph in the 19th century.”

What a great paragraph!

Then there is the fact that many states and school systems have quit teaching cursive writing. I think this is terrible. What if one day, for some reason, there are no more computers or social media? These kids will have a tough time writing a letter or paper for school without penmanship.

They will not even be able to sign their names! I know, in many instances, you sign for things electronically these days. Heck, some places don’t even want you to use cash or real money to pay for goods or services. So if you do not have a credit card or debit card, you are in trouble.

The decline in letter writing constitutes a cultural shift.

AI (artificial intelligence) handicaps younger folks even more. I am sure some of the younger generation may be turning to AI to write their papers or communications. Personally, I just don’t like this new era.

Our history was put down in records by those who could write and document facts.

Even the Declaration of Independence was handwritten. Think about that.

Many of the first books were written by a pen and scroll.

As Newsweek wrote, “There is email, certainly, and texting, but this is communication that is for the most part here today and deleted tomorrow.” So if you do not save the email, text or social media message, you have lost proof of that message.

When I first started writing for newspapers, I would write out my rough draft with pen or pencil and paper. Handwriting notes on a pad of paper was the means for taking information or doing interviews.

But the real message here is that we rarely see anyone write or communicate by old-fashioned letters these days. You may get a birthday card with a short note written on the inside of the card, but getting a letter from a family member or friend is virtually non-existent today.

Handwritten letters were and could still be an embodiment of connecting with other humans.

I guess I am just nostalgic and a person who misses some of the old ways.

I sure hope that they will continue to teach our children how to write a letter with proper greetings, salutations and signatures. And how to address an envelope and mail it.

Please bring back cursive writing in school.

Is this too much to ask?

Until next time.

(Kyle Lovern is a longtime journalist in the Tug Valley. He is now a retired freelance writer and columnist for the Mountain Citizen.)