Belonging to the generation when inter-state or STD (no, let’s not get into the present and relevant context of this acronym) calls were expensive and a luxury, the beauty of receiving the blue inland letter from your sister, every couple of weeks is an experience which few of us have experienced. The vivid descriptions of the day-to-day life activities brought into life, the experiences of a sibling studying far away.

Orkut was my first tryst with social media, and the scraps and testimonials still bring back the days of college life. Then came Facebook and Twitter, and the host of other social media sites that we have today. However, as our evolution with social media grew, the size of our interaction decreased. Long letters replaced by shorter scraps and posts on walls and now we have the seemingly innocuous and pithy #hashtags to express our feelings. It really brings me to think-Are real long conversations dead?

Will our next generation communicate effectively through a couple of highly specific terms? Will the sounds of laughter be replaced by ‘lol’ and ‘rofl’? Language is evolving, and condensing. Long Shakespearean, verbose and convoluted language is almost gone. Complex poetry is rare. Actual physical interaction is replaced by ‘pokes’. We have really evolved in this aspect.

Hashtags are effective. They are short and precise, no beating around, no hassle, no prologue, chapters and epilogues. And they express your state of mind. But can they really express feelings?
The wonders of a picture, the emotions associated with a topic, the expression that ‘words are not enough’, these concepts may seem ancient.

As I jot it down in this seemingly archaic medium, my mind turn to whether I could have expressed it in a more effective way? #musings #LettersAreDead #NoLongSentence #shortTerms #newAge #Evolution