Write me a letter

The Telegraph has an interesting list of 50 things that are being killed by the internet. I agree completely – for instance, this on top of the list – The art of polite disagreement – The most raucous sections of the blogworld seem incapable of accepting sincerely held differences of opinion; all opponents must have “agendas”. I do not think people who use the internet have firmer beliefs or are more vociferous about expressing them; I think this has to do with the way the internet has freed people from having to be responsible for their actions. Some of the sling-fests on blogs, *shudder*.

Letter writing – somewhere down the list – is one thing I miss – the only letters I ever receive now are printed and the signatures xeroxed across a thousand such others. Needless to say, most of them are thrown away (and needless to add, an extensive and frantic search for them takes place exactly three days later when realization dawns that the letter contained the ATM PIN for which one has been hounding the bank for several months now – but blame it on the printed thingy).

In the list and not true for me, Solitaire and Minesweeper – and Tetris! oh, no, nothing on the internet compares with the joy of watching blocks of colored shapes falling on your computer screen – nothing, not even those silly and addictive games on facebook.

And not in the list – spelling and grammar – language has taken a beating. Is it the internet or is it that combined with text messaging and general lack of interest and attention that has made SMSese universal lingua-franca? I dunno – u tel me.