What do you think of physical mail?

[Cele]

I never get anything but ads and bills. If I get cards (usually handed to me instead of mailed tbh...) I put them to the fridge. On the fridge? I don't really know the proper grammar and I'm too lazy to look it up

But at work I sometimes send stuff to other departments in envelopes. I like adding little post-it note messages

[shevek]

I like using physical mail for love letters. When my girlfriend used to live further away, I used to send some, and to some partners before that. They had cute doodles and styles in the text, a kiss print or a hand print, dried pressed flowers taped to the pages, a spritz of perfume, and stuff like that; I sometimes included (sealed) tea bags so the other person could try that kind while reading the it. And the envelope also had some art to make it fancy. I hoped the post delivery person had something nice to look at with that.




I have more images somewhere but they aren't on my website yet.

[Guest]

I never get anything but ads and bills. If I get cards (usually handed to me instead of mailed tbh...) I put them to the fridge. On the fridge? I don't really know the proper grammar and I'm too lazy to look it up

But at work I sometimes send stuff to other departments in envelopes. I like adding little post-it note messages

Maybe one day I can send you some snail mail, neighbor!

I can't right now as my mother won't let me yet.

[Cele]

Maybe one day I can send you some snail mail, neighbor!

I can't right now as my mother won't let me yet.

Oh that would be fun. Like I sent letters to my friend as a kid after she moved to a different town :]

[Melooon]

Sorry I accidentally deleted @Kitsune post last!

Yuh!

You'll have to give me an address though in a PM or something later on when I can send you one.

I won't reveal anything!

Hi, I need to step in and add a note that no one on this forum should be giving out personal addresses or other personally identifying info unless you are over 18 and are very certain of who you are contacting  It's just not safe, no matter how trustworthy the person may be!

I'd also like to repeat (Im sure I said it somewhere before) but if you do share details with someone online, don't do it on this forum because this is not a secure platform by modern standards, messages are not encrypted 

[Cele]

Thank god for poste restante

[TYOMA !!]

Snail mail as a communication medium: love it! For all the reasons people have shared here.

I don't like it in practice because it has gone the same route that most other communications mediums have gone: being the way I get a bunch of spam and advertisements for products/services I don't even care about!

The only reason I like it outside of that is because I can't exactly ignore it. For one thing, if I don't check my mail, I'm going to have my mailbox explode from all the letters jammed into it. Also, because I have to go get it, then I have a higher chance of seeing important notices.

I know, I know, going paperless is more eco-friendly, but I hardly check my email anymore because most of THAT is just spam, advertisements, and subscriptions I can't seem to get rid of! Don't even get started on my phone also being unusable because of all the stupid security codes flooding through 24/7!

[Guest]

I don't use physical mail outside of sending things to government agencies and receiving either bank statements or IRS paperwork. Junk mail is the main reason I dislike physical mail, it wastes paper and my time from shredding it. I don't get any but my parents do and just looking at it makes me feel annoyed that I might have to deal with that when I move out, assuming I can keep up with making sure no data broker has my information.

A useful tip: Anything sent as standard (std) postage is almost certainly junk mail. Official paperwork will always be first class postage.

[shwintykat]

I also love snail mail!

I send letters semi-regularly to my girlfriend and friends, but I'm also a member of Postcrossing. It's a site where users are randomly given an address to send a postcard to (without a return address) and you can choose for the people who get yours to exclusively come from outside your country (the usual cautions come with this but Ive been using the website for a year so far and havent had any issues).

I love the little pictures people add to their postcards and all the interesting stamps, I especially love hearing about peoples' days! I have a whole binder filled up with postcards sent to me from around the world. One of my favorites is one that was handmade and hand-drawn by the sender and another is one which arrived in an envelope with foreign bookmarks, a tea bag, a Ukrain flag sticker, and a random receipt from a foreign shop

[grovyle]

I've never gone through the post office to send a letter, but I think I enjoy physical mail in a way! I'm always making cards for birthdays, big events (weddings, first tooth to fall, graduations), mother's/father's day, etc. If I'm giving a gift to you, there's going to be a card with it, and 95% of the time, also a letter. When I went to class I did my fair share of having conversations through passed notes, and writing on other people's notebooks to get a message across, or just to be silly lol. I'd love to get into actual post office mail sometime in the future! When I live in a place where it isn't as expensive, maybe haha

[kandeez]

snail mail might be one of my favorites but the issue i always fall into is getting around to actually sending it. i can never seem to remember to walk it over to the mailbox and if i do get to that i usually will forget i need a stamp (or worse not have enough stamps)

[Absentmind]

Speaking of penpals, I have this app called Slowly which is a penpal app that sends mail... slowly  depending on your distance from your pal. For example, a penpal in America to send to Britain, the mail would take about 8h to deliver to you. It's a fun little inbetween for sure!

[Guest]

snail mail is fun, but I'm not fond of writing letters and would be a terrible pen pal. :( I used to love sending cards to my friends but kinda dropped doing that for a while, whoops. at least I sent them valentines this year.

[CableCat]

I love physical mail! I participated in a valentine exchange this year and I got some really neat handmade cards!

I send mail to people when I can. But also it take a lot of effort to write. I used to write by hand often, but now I'm too used to typing and texting. I need to retrain my hand and brain to write because I actually love to do it.

It's just... after I had coronavirus twice and dealt with serious brain fog, I noticed that my memory and the way I process things was like, altered. I'm not the same as I was, and it's taken time to get that sort of brain power back.

But I do have fond memories of being overseas and my partner mailing me letters. We have a box of all the letters we sent back and forth early in our relationship. I will never get rid of them.

[ShaolinSoap]

Receiving or creating quality letters is super neat!  I recently had an experience writing thank you notes and it was dreadful to write little handwritten notes for some reason. I love the idea of mail being around for so long and continuing it with close ones, despite having quicker methods. Definitely cool experience to see that effort in physical form. I do like the sounda paper typed or written letters much more than a little Target birthday card type shizzzz