Editing Letter (message) (section)

==Comparison with electronic mail==
{{More|Email}}

[[File:François Boucher - The Secret Message.jpg|thumbnail|[[François Boucher]] – ''The Secret Message'', 1767 ([[Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum]])]]

Despite email's widespread use, letters are still popular, particularly in business and for official communications. At the same time, many "letters" are sent in electronic form. The following advantages of paper letters over e-mails and text messages are put forward:
*No special device is needed to receive a letter, just a postal address, and the letter can be read immediately on receipt.
*An e-mail may sit in a recipient's inbox for some time before being read, or may not be read at all; a paper letter is more likely to receive prompt attention once it arrives.
*An advertising mailing can reach every address in a particular area.
*A letter provides an immediate, and in principle permanent, physical record of communication, without the need for printing. Letters, especially those with a signature and/or on an organization's own notepaper, are more difficult to falsify than is an email, and thus provide much better evidence of the contents of the communication.
*A letter in the sender's own handwriting is more personal than an e-mail and shows that the sender has taken the effort to write it.
*If required, small physical objects can be enclosed in the envelope with the letter.
*Letters are unable to transmit [[malware]] or other harmful files that can be transmitted by e-mail.
*E-mails are insecure and may be intercepted en route. For this reason, letters are often preferred for confidential correspondence.
*Letter writing leads to the mastery of the technique of good writing.
*Letter writing can provide an extension of the face-to-face therapeutic encounter.{{clarify|date=September 2020}}<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://dulwichcentre.com.au/letters-in-the-street/|title='Print Letters in the street: A narrative based outreach approach'|access-date=2019-04-08|archive-date=2019-04-08|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190408114305/https://dulwichcentre.com.au/letters-in-the-street/|url-status=live}}</ref>
*Since at least a small fee is required, sending a large number of irrelevant letters becomes more expensive (and therefore less likely) than e-mail (spam).

The following advantages are put forward for e-mails and text messages over traditional letters:
*They can be transmitted instantly.
*They can be sent to a number of recipients in one operation.
*They do not require a postage fee.
*They do not require materials such as paper and ink.
*Often an e-mail would require a less formal style than a letter to the same recipient, and thus may take less time to write. It is also easier to make amendments to a draft than it is with a handwritten letter.
*E-mails may be composed using spell checkers and other devices, and thus may conceal the ignorance (inability to spell or compose prose etc.) of the sender.
*During an epidemic, e-mails cannot transmit diseases.
*Emails do not take up physical space and cannot be damaged in a natural disaster.