Shall I compare thee to a . . .

In generations past it was customary to display one's affection and desire for another through an act of romance.  While today these acts still exist there is one such act that has all but died.  The Love Letter.  It's rather heart warming to think of the concept, to take the time to write with pen and paper in your own hand the feelings you have for another.  The act in itself was often long lived.  Beyond the initial reading of the letter by the recipient, love letters were often kept for years maybe even for a lifetime.  Their presence a treasured possession and the reflection and nostalgia that arose when reading them years later were emotions that perhaps future generations might not experience.

As technology has advanced so too have our behaviours.  Today it would be less common to write a love letter, and more common to write perhaps a love email, text, tweet, or some other electronic communication.  One might ask why would you do this when you can tell the person directly?  Well the same question could be asked of love letters, they were often sent between people who could see one another if they wanted, even those who lived together would gift a letter to the other, the purpose is the act of affection it represents and the romantic nature of the gesture.

Do you save your emails?  Keep every one a crush writes to you?  What about texts?  As for social networks like twitter and Facebook, keeping what is written on these sites relies on two things, firstly as the posts are written by the other person, on most sites you rely on them not deleting it, and secondly the site itself needs to continue to run in order for you to use it.  It may seem rather inconceivable to some that there will come a day when Facebook or Twitter would shut down for good, but they are businesses at the end of the day and they need to make a profit to continue operating, these sites will not last forever, if and when they stop being profitable they will close.

The days of keeping letters that were carefully written with love and affection it seems are gone.  This makes it easier for us to forget the past - that's not always a bad thing but some things are worth remembering, and ink on paper fades more slowly than memories.