Digital invasion

The opinion article ‘The digital age is destroying the art of the letter’ published in Gulf Today website on Feb.5, is genuinely what exists in present-day life.

I would more than agree that letter writing is a dying art. Right from birth, the digital invasion in life is tuning the human brain to a different angle to adjust to the new age syndrome, where words such as ‘online’, ‘live’ etc. have become part of life’s curriculum.

As an individual who has written over 9,000 letters to the editors of various newspapers and magazines, perhaps a few might have been written using pen and paper some two decades ago, then faxed to the editor’s office – those days have gone. Today, letters are written on smartphones and instantly sent. There are comforts for auto-correcting the spelling, grammar, and all required to make the content understandable to the receiving end.

What we are losing is the fingers’ flexibility, the brain’s thinking power and, most importantly, the skills to write beautifully. To me, handwriting will expose a person’s character as much as it reflects in ink.

It would be interesting to see when candidates come for interviews giving a pen and paper to write about themselves. Indeed, it would be challenging for them, but it allows them to go back to their school age as they start learning the letters and when they forgot them. Many would struggle, for sure, to present it in such a way that impresses their interviewing board.

I still love to write and often attempt to see how handwriting looks in the digital era. The shift from the fingers to digital platforms is seriously evident in every attempt. What makes me happy sometimes is flipping through the handwritten magazines of my school and college days that I preserve as the nostalgic memories of the beginning of life and that homesickness always gives pleasure.

Ramachandran Nair,
Muscat