Does it ever occur to you how much more romantic or sincere getting a handwritten card saying “I love you” is when compared to a Facebook message? Or why taking the time and energy to write a love letter is so much more significant than saying the same thing over an email?

Students, creative types, and artists aside, we’re just not using pen and paper as much anymore.

We’ve switched to digital screens and keyboards to write, create, and communicate. Perhaps writing with pen and paper is a lost art, one on the verge of going extinct. Perhaps it’s just meant to be substituted by some model that’s more efficient, or more apt for our times.

Pen and paper is how language takes flight

Using a pen and paper makes you think. Writing with pen and paper forces you to consider every word: its hidden meanings, its sub-meanings, and all the connotations in between.

When writing with pen and paper, language has a lot more substance. It carries so much more meaning than an email, a text, a Facebook message.

But why is that so?

We might be grading essays and papers based on grammar and syntax rules, but communication – writing a love letter to your significant other or a thank you note to a relative – these forms of communication are rated on a different, more qualitative level.

And if you use pen and paper your rating will be excellent, because nobody does that anymore. It’s a unique gesture filled with warmth and the welcoming reassurance that people still value sincere communication. Perhaps it’s because it’s more laborious to write a handwritten thank-you note than it is to get it over with using a cold, faceless email.

It’s not that these media do not convey the meaning we intend. The words we’re going to use are probably the same. It’s the medium that’s the message in this case. The fact that you’ve written a message by hand with pen and paper lets the other person really feel your caring nature and your good intentions.

So should we go back to handwritten forms of communication?

Don’t ditch digital communication just yet

It’s direct, time-efficient, and does its job well. In the business world, it’s impractical to write everything out by hand. But for times when the other person or situation is special, or when you want to make a difference in how you communicate, choose pen and paper if possible.

It makes all the difference.

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