Written communication is almost always better than no communication at all. However, it is still a very poor substitute in many ways.
Firstly, when writing to someone, we usually omit all the “little” things that make communication personal and emotional, rather than a technical connection. Little things include the smile we add when saying, “Oh, what a lovely idea,” or the facial expression we instinctively make when expressing sympathy and telling someone how much we feel for them.
Consider the loss of tone of voice or facial expression, which convey so much and simply cannot be portrayed adequately with the written word. Furthermore, if we aren’t careful — and most people aren’t — misunderstandings are so common. “Remember to buy milk on your way home!” can be read humorously, or as criticism (“You forgot last time, after all...”) or as an insulting command.
In our day and age, so many people are accustomed to “communicating” in a highly abbreviated written form — as if the few seconds saved are worth losing out on the nuance that spending a little more time and effort would have added. While writing can seem like a more economical use of time than speech, so much is lost with this substitution. To convey the same message, we would really have to write much, much more than most people ever do.
So, if you want to make a request in writing, be careful how you make it and take the time to put the “tone” into your words. Do this even if you want to say something complimentary. After all, if you were saying something nice to a person, your facial expression and the warmth in your tone would convey a lot more than just the plain words themselves.
Another drawback to writing rather than speaking is that it becomes so terribly easy to be nasty. When sending a letter, you worry less about how the person is going to react when they read it. As a result, many people write things they would never dream of saying, or which they would quickly stop saying before backtracking with an apology once they see how badly the other person is taking it. In person, hurt feelings can be soothed with a smile or a hug. None of that is possible with a letter.
On several occasions, people have shared with me incredibly hurtful things their spouses wrote to them. I’m often shocked by the degree of hostility expressed. Interestingly, it has happened that they later admitted telling me — upon which the spouse lambasted them: “How could you tell Rabbi Gruen? I’m horrified you could do such a thing!”
Without getting into whether it’s always appropriate to share correspondence, I would like to stress that being horrified is totally appropriate — being horrified that you wrote such words in the first place. How is it that you weren’t ashamed to write such hurtful words and only figured out how shameful it was when a third party read it?
An added point to consider is that the recipient of such a hurtful letter may decide to keep it. Rereading a letter from years back has so much more impact than recalling words once spoken. You may later come to regret what you wrote but once the letter has been sent, it’s impossible to retrieve.
