From snail mail to e-mail

It is undisputable that e-mail will put you in immediate contact with someone living thousands of miles away such as my friends and family who reside in England, Croatia, Canada, and the US.

With a click of the send option they can hear about the goings on in my life. Similarly, with a click of that same send button my inbox can become jampacked with those forwarded mail which have made the rounds to several other e-mail addresses.

The popularity of e-mail has led to a big resurgence of the chain letter. In the days of just pen, paper these letters did not get circulated as fast but things have changed.

With our new technology, chain letters en masse can now be disseminated. And you know what? In the past, ordinary chain letters that came via the post office would have been immediately tossed into the nearest dustbin.

But such is our facination with e-mail that we simply must read them all. Some interesting and amusing forwarded mails have come my way but I still cringe every time I see “fwd” — the abbreviation for forwarded mail.

Another peeve is when I see a chain letter that is more than one hundred and two hundred kb. The size of some of them drastically reduces the available space in the inbox. E-mail is a faster way for misinformation in chain letters to be disseminated.

I received an e-mail some months ago about cancer causing lead in lipsticks from Dior, Lancome, Clinque, YSL etc.

However, a check on the Internet soon revealed this letter to be a hoax. The chain letter had advised people to check for lead content in the brands identified by putting some of the lipstick on their hand and then scraping a gold ring (14k or 24K) across the lipstick mark.

If it turned black that confirmed the presence of lead. However, Cancer Research UK, one of the sites responding to the e-mail said “no such test” could give this information. This particular e-mail has been going around since 2002.

The number of chain letters circulating has caused a site to be dedicated to debunking the claims made in them. The site—breakthechain.org has classified several types of chain letters including “political ponderings” (which includes criticism of US President George W Bush), Something for Nothing (about letters promising free giveaways) and “For the Kids”—those disturbing and annoying chain letters appealing for assistance for a child.

I have had a few chain letters appealing for help for a child such as Alexandra, a badly burnt baby who was hospitalised.

The photo accompanying the letter made me cringe. These letters always ask the receiver to forward it to several other people to raise money.

One of my overseas friends recently sent me an e-mail about a seven-year-old named Amy Bruce who allegedly has severe lung cancer and a “tumour on the brain from repeated beatings.”

Now doesn’t a tale of disease and child abuse soften your heart?

The letter quotes Amy saying she would die soon and her family cannot afford to pay her medical bills. The Make-a-Wish Foundation is linked to the appeal with the claim that seven cents will be donated to this organisation every time the message was sent to others.

The letter ends with a dig at those who may be callous enough to ignore the e-mail.

“For those who send it thanks —those who don’t what goes around comes around — please if you are a kind person send this on — not reply.” I really, really hate those chain letters which have overt and subtle threats if the reader does not want to participate.

With chain letters we have to be very careful should our e-mail address fall into the wrong hands and we are bombarded with all kinds of junk e-mail.

Now that we have e-mail fewer people write letters. This is unfortunate since I really enjoy having the tangible paper or greeting card at least once in a while. Printing a letter from e-mail or downloading a card is just not the same.

But such is life. On the bright side, as fast as I get one of those chain letters, e-mail has another option available to us all—the delete button.