为什么手写信件如此重要

在这个即时通讯的时代, Siena 罗德里格斯 is a rarity — a busy college student who hand-writes letters.

She began writing letters before starting preschool and hasn’t stopped. Since then, she’s written hundreds of letters to friends and family. The psychology and neuroscience major who works in Professor Flavio Frohlich’s lab in the School of 医学’s psychiatry department also encourages others to write to her.

As a young child attending church with her mother, 罗德里格斯 stayed occupied with a box of trinkets and stationery. “我不记得了, but I apparently wrote letters to parishioners and left them by the Mary statue,”她说。.

Letters allowed 罗德里格斯 to “tell someone anything you wanted to” and express her feelings in ways that transcended time. “Maybe I can’t tell you I love you in this minute, but in a letter, it doesn’t matter,”她说。.

罗德里格斯, a junior Morehead-Cain Scholar from Signal Mountain, 田纳西州, 知道人们为什么喜欢信件. “拿着纸笔坐下来, you come with an intention of ‘I’m not only going to think these thoughts or tell you these thoughts, 但我要把它们写下来.’ The power of that physical act makes it more personal rather than a thought,” 罗德里格斯 said.

莎拉Algoe, a professor in the psychology and neuroscience department in the 文理学院, 他研究社会互动, 同意. “A letter shows this person was thinking about me and took the time to actually put pen to paper,阿尔戈说. “As humans, we want to feel valued and loved and respected, and a letter signals that.

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“Letters also usually disclose a person’s thoughts and feelings at some level, 比如‘上个月见到你我很兴奋,或者“这是我对一种情况的看法。,’”阿尔戈说.

研究 in psychology and relationship science by Algoe and others supports the idea that self-disclosure creates closeness and intimacy. Those feelings may then cause a letter recipient to contact the sender or take steps to see them sooner than planned.

“Those are the ways that relationships get built over time, by one person doing something that literally draws the other person in,阿尔戈说.

That’s what happened when 罗德里格斯’s now-boyfriend, 住在信号山附近的人, 四年前的感恩节来她家. He couldn’t stay long, and while leaving, handed 罗德里格斯 a letter. “I don’t think he knew how much I loved letters,”她说。. In the letter, he told her that he loved her for the first time. 我立刻给他写了一封信, 晚饭后, I walked the 10 minutes to his house to give it to him.”

罗德里格斯主要使用笔记本纸, 有时是为特殊场合制作的手工纸, 和短, 可以折叠的棕色信封. 她的朋友称之为“锡耶纳信”.”

Letters are timeless, 罗德里格斯 said, especially for stories and momentous events. “Holding that documentation of exactly when somebody told you they love you is amazing. 我们可能还记得这段对话, but there’s nothing like having a definitive piece of paper to capture that moment and your feelings,”她说。.

罗德里格斯的写信技巧包括:

•不要强迫这个过程. “If I’m walking or not focusing on something, I start getting ideas. By the time I sit down and write, I usually have a good idea of what I will say.”

•让每天的感恩激励你. “I think about why I’m grateful for a person or what in our interactions is meaningful.”

•听音乐. Her go-to song is “Naked as We Came” by Iron and Wine. “它有这种重复的旋律，很平静.”