“There’s a saying that paper is more patient than man.” Anne Frank, Holocaust survivor and author of The Diary of a Young Girl
I remember 1997 well, the same year I delivered my first paid speech. I installed Outlook on my computer, connected to the internet via my phone line, and shared my new email address with some people.
I eagerly awaited my first email, which arrived a few days later, followed by another on the same day! I can’t remember who those first emails were from. I also can’t tell you how many emails I’ve received since then, most of which are unsolicited trash. Like you, I have thousands of emails stored in my current email system. I might have read less than 20 percent of them fully or partially, but over 99.95 percent of them I will never read again. This doesn’t consider the vast amounts of emails I’ve deleted.
In 2019, I hosted a convention for the Professional Speakers Association of Southern Africa in Johannesburg and invited UK speaker Caspar Craven to stay with me.
A month after the convention, I got a two-page handwritten letter in the mail from Caspar. He expressed his gratitude to my wife and me for our warm hospitality, sharing how much he enjoyed our convention. He also shared interesting updates about his activities and family life, which he mentioned in his enlightening book, Where The Magic Happens – How a Young Family Changed Their Lives and Sailed Around the World.
That letter stayed on my desk for years. I reread it several times and kept thinking about his thoughtfulness. He bought a letter-writing pad, wrote the letter by hand, folded it, and put it in an envelope. He went to the post office, had it weighed, bought international stamps, and placed an airmail sticker on the envelope before mailing it with his return address.
That took a lot more trouble than an email would have. Even after over five years, I can still vividly recall the impact that handwritten letter had on me.
This is the type of activity that everyday people engaged in regularly before the mid-1990s. In boarding school, I eagerly looked forward to Fridays for letters from home, which were 1600 km away and took about a week to arrive. I enthusiastically delved into these letters, revisiting them numerous times. It was truly disheartening to find an empty bag when other boys were happily receiving multiple letters.
Is a handwritten letter really so special? Research suggests receiving one is very special, even more so now, since they are so rare.
Research shows that people view handwritten letters as more serious than emails, leading to better comprehension, retention, and trust.
Research in 2003 headed by P. K. Murphy, from Ohio State University’s School of Educational Policy and Leadership, studied the effectiveness of persuasion in paper versus digital formats in his work titled Persuasion online or on paper: a new take on an old issue.
In the study, undergraduate students read two controversial Time magazine articles, either on paper or on a computer screen.
The study involved tech-savvy undergraduates who spent over 12 hours a week on computers.
The first article, First and Last, Do No Harm, examined a recent ruling by US courts that permitted doctor-assisted suicide for patients with terminal illnesses.
The second article, Dividing Line: Why We Need to Raise Hell, examined the pros and cons of improving the integration of Black and White children in low-income areas in America.
The researchers asked one group to read both articles on a computer. The second group reviewed printed copies of the same two articles.
Both groups reported increased knowledge, but the computer-only readers found the articles less interesting and credible.
The findings show that messages on physical paper are perceived as more credible and better retained. The physical and sensory qualities of paper significantly improve cognitive processing and emotional involvement, resulting in deeper understanding and greater persuasive impact.
Excerpt from The Book of Persuasion – How You Can Change People’s Minds and Influence Their Decisions While Building Trust – Paul du Toit, Author & Certified Speaking Professional 2025, Congruence Publishing
