Had a conversation yesterday with the postmistress. The Post Office is laying off posties. Considering that years ago students could always get a job delivering the extra Christmas mail, this seems astonishing. But then, it seems that Christmas cards themselves may soon be a thing of the past. Now that it costs 50p to post each one, folks are sending messages on Facebook to say 'this is my card to all my friends' or are sending one but including a note that requests your phone number because next year they'd rather ring, for free.
But will they keep that up? Would I? Or will that become a chore? Imagine the conversation in years to come:
"Whose turn is it to phone the next person on the list?"
"Oh, do I have to?"
Plus no decorative Christmas cards, no joy of trying to guess the handwriting on the envelope. You'd better hang on to this years; they may become antiques.
The other part of the conversation was about a family row because her daughter had sat at one end of their sitting room TEXTING her daughter-in-law at the other! More and more social interaction (can it even be called 'social', shouldn't it be 'virtual'?) is conducted electronically. Better not leave visiting your Facebook page for too long, or you'll miss out.
Even HoF, now retired, spends most of the day doing things on the pooter because that's the way everything is conducted, and it gets harder to prise him out of the house. We can order shopping, buy our postage, conduct our banking transactions, find the news, the weather, book our holidays all online. And with tablets etc we can keep it up even if we do venture out of the house. Our eyes need never leave the screen.
It's a strange new world that's coming. I'd better get off this thing myself. Now knitting, there's one thing I don't need a computer for.
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