In a day and age when technology pervades any and every facet of human life, when a text or call has the power to define it, I can’t help but wonder what’s left for our future flashbacks.

It makes one wonder whether there will be anything to find in the boxes in the attic we will stumble upon in a yearly bout of spring cleaning and the drawers our children will rummage through in pursuit of a deeper connection.

I have a strong supposition that the most important and memorable words of our lifetime will inevitably be lost in a digital vortex of our own creation — or worse: the spam folder.

This question of whether a handwritten letter is preferable to an email, text, or post is proposed.

In an article entitled “Why E-mail Will Never Replace the Handwritten Note,” Forbes’ Jessica Kleiman encapsulates the dire significance of putting hand to paper and using an actual — brace yourselves — pen. My thumb pulses at the horror. In fact, the keypad behind my eyelids is becoming jumbled at the thought of it.

But Kleiman presents a worthwhile argument in the form of empathy. If you didn’t already feel guilty for not sending those thank-you cards after your birthday, cue panic.

“The generation graduating from college now has grown up in a digital world,” Kleiman said. “But there’s still something to be said for taking the time to handwrite your thoughts — whether it be your feelings for a loved one … or a thank you to someone who has taken the time to help you with your career.”

In a daunting revelation, Kleiman’s sentiments go beyond that of good ol’ etiquette. At the dawn of our “digital world,” somehow, archaic gestures have become impressive to those who aren’t scratching their heads — especially in the workforce.

“A female magazine publisher I know said that if she interviews someone and they don’t send a real note as a follow-up, she will not hire them, no matter how impressive they were in person,” Kleiman said.

Those of us used to the one-click hoorah of a send button may be shocked by this, considering the rapidity of the times we live in. But there’s something there, something we’re missing that got lost within the LED flash of hysteria.

How many people can honestly say they’re not disappointed every time they open their mailbox? Personally, I’ve downsized my magazine subscriptions, so I stop associating mail with joy. Mail is for bills and ads and more bills.

Sure, I would probably seize up with coffee-fueled euphoria if an out-of-state friend wrote me a letter or even a touching, short and sweet card. Where texts or emails are more of digital poking — a concise “Hey, just checking in” — a handwritten note is so romanticized at this point that we find it oddly dramatic and therefore endearing. The few times I have received or written a letter, I was slightly critical in my suspicion of the act being scandalous.

Why are they writing me? Am I that important to them? Should I be writing them? What’s a pen?

One could make the argument that while writing letters sounds like a good idea in theory, it’s not worth the time or effort because a simple Facebook message could accomplish the same thing. I go so far as to assume that this is the general opinion of most students whose busy schedules don’t allow them the luxury or desire to resist the temptation of a keyboard.

For political science senior Kendrick Alridge, this isn’t entirely true.

“Handwritten letters are much more personal and show effort from the author, to sit down and write it out,” Alridge said. “There’s a big difference in reading a whole letter written out by hand versus a letter typed up and signed at the bottom.”

It’s definitely worth considering. But as this heart-shaped month beats out its last few weeks, love tweets are sure to be more prevalent than what Lord Byron did with that utensil and some parchment. Better yet, I have no doubt that a chain email of a bug-eyed cat holding roses is certainly in circulation somewhere.

However, the act of sitting yourself down at a desk, selecting a few unwrinkled pages of stationery and stringing together a reminder to someone else that you’re not just a name on a screen sounds like a truly fascinating challenge we all could benefit from trying at least once.

Many students seem to feel that when writing letters they are free to ignore all the basic principles of composition. Some write as infrequently and as briefly as they can, and others, who are free enough with their pens, apparently assume that their ideas may be heaped up on paper in happy disregard of form. Yet in this universal and very personal kind of writing there is every need for care in word selection and sentence formation and ample room for care or neglect in paragraphing and general planning. As, however, letter writing is usually considered to be free from — or above — rule and precept, a chapter on the subject is specially pertinent even though its main points are treated separately and at greater length in connection with the more formal types of composition. Furthermore, there are many very definite usages, or conventions, of letter writing which are as distinctly matters of etiquette as good manners at the table or in the classroom. These will be summarized at the end of the chapter.

LITERARY ASPECTS OF THE SOCIAL LETTER

The place of letters in literature. The mere bulk of the letters which have a place in permanent literature is proof enough of the dignity of this kind of composition at its best. Poets, essayists, and novelists, as well as great numbers of men and women without literary aspirations, have all contributed their quota. As long as a hundred and fifty years ago, letters of well-known people were published so commonly in England that Dr. Johnson declared in protest, “It is now become so much the fashion to publish letters that in order to avoid it I put as little as possible into mine.” Even at that the Doctor did not altogether escape; and since the issuing of the letters of Chesterfield and Walpole in his day, hardly a year has passed without some important addition to this department of literature. Moreover, since James Boswell wrote his famous life of Dr. Johnson letters have more and more been quoted in extended biographies; and since Richardson and Smollett used make-believe letters in such stories as “Clarissa Harlowe” and “Humphrey Clinker” the epistolary form of novel has never gone out of use. The personal letter has no small place in literature.

The partial decline of letter writing. Yet the saying is common today that letter writing is a declining art. People seldom write the old-fashioned, leisurely letters either for private reading or in the hope of future publication. There is less reason than there used to be for doing so. The daily papers distribute news so quickly and fully that gossipy information by letter, of the sort which swells the correspondence of Horace Walpole to nine large volumes, would be out of date by the time it was delivered. In the weekly and monthly magazines thinking people discuss current events and live problem; and unthinking people can be more thoughtless than ever, now that they can get their minds made up for them at a subscription of so much per month. Again, the perfecting of the postal system during the last century has wrought a great change. A hundred years ago it took so long and cost so much to send a letter that it seemed worth while to put some time and thought into writing it. Now the quickness and the cheapness of the post seem to justify the feeling that a brief letter today may be followed by another next week — a “line” now by another tomorrow. Yet though the long letter may be less common than it used to be, people will always be writing letters of some length, and the qualities of a good letter, whether long or short, are the same.