ImageLast week, the United States Postal Service proposed that the price of stamps should rise three cents as a last resort to help themselves during extreme financial challenges. This change is to go into effect in January, and mailing a letter will now cost forty-nine cents as opposed to forty-six.

I’m fifteen. Why do I care about this issue?

First of all, the reason that the Postal Services are in such a financial hardship is because they aren’t delivering enough mail. The people who actually are sending out mail with their forty-six cent stamps aren’t covering all the expenditures that the Postal Service must deal with.

If you like facts in numbers, I have some. In 2011, 168 billion letters were mailed by the United States Postal Service. That’s a whooping number, isn’t it? Compare it to 212 billion. That’s how many letters were mailed in 2007; 44 billion less were sent within 4 years.

Why is the postal service losing its customers? People have always had bills to mail, magazines to receive, and a shirt to send back to the store. Right?

One of the biggest aspects of the mail service that’s dying is snail mail. By using the term “snail mail”, I’m referring to those personal letters we write to our friends and family and send via putting-it-in-the-mailbox.

Yes, you are able to do that outside of Christmas cards. 

Here’s some more numbers: The Postal Service doesn’t keep track of how many personal letters are sent every year, but the overall snail mail volume in the United States has dropped to its lowest level since 1964, when the U.S. population was estimated at 192 million. The population is now an estimated 306 million.

Why aren’t we writing our friends and family? Well, for many reasons: Who has the time to find a piece of paper, pen, envelope, stamp, and then sit down and write something out? An email probably could have already been sent. Or a voicemail left. Or a text message delivered.

In the hustle and bustle of today’s fast-paced world, people simply don’t have the time to mail a letter. And I get that. But call me old-fashioned; I still do it. I don’t know what it is about receiving a letter in the mail, but it can make my whole week. There’s just something special that lies in physically having a note from someone else. It’s much more personal, and much easier to save and hold on to.

I’ve been writing letters with one of my best friends since eighth grade, as we wanted to keep in touch when he went off to private high school. I’ve kept every single one of his letters. Call me a pack-rat, but real letters are something special. They can’t be copied and pasted, they can’t be forwarded, and you have the pleasure of knowing that they’re meant only for you.

Today, the average 10-12 year old does not know how to address an envelope. To me, this is sad. When I was that age, I wrote a hundred letters. I remember Santa being one of my biggest pen pals. I also remember writing one of my really good friends who had moved. We kept in touch via mail for a long time. In fact, I even remember mailing a letter from my house right back to my own mailbox. I’d sent a letter to my parents, and wanted it to have an official delivery.

I’ll say it: snail mail is a dying art. And yet I feel it is such an important one. I was that little girl who waited for the mailman to arrive, and then ran out in my bare feet to take out the ruffled letters and magazines from the mailbox. It was something so small that I got so much pleasure from.

The price of stamps is going to have to go up three cents, and I will still be buying them. Inside me, there’s still that little girl running to the mailbox, eagerly reaching my short arm in to see if I got a letter. Snail mail may be dead in the modern world, but I’m doing all I can to keep it and all its wonders alive in mine.


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