skip to main content
10.1145/3629606.3629657acmotherconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication Pageschinese-chiConference Proceedingsconference-collections
research-article

Reviving Sentimentality: Unlocking the emotional value of postal letters with digital preservation strategies

Published: 27 February 2024 Publication History

Abstract

In the era of digitization, electronic communication is gradually supplanting traditional postal letters. This research endeavors to explore how digital technology can be harnessed to redefine the emotional core of traditional mail and drive the contemporary resurgence of postal letters. We employ methods like competitive analysis, digital ethnography, and surveys to thoroughly mine potential opportunities in the digital postal service market and gain a deeper understanding of user attitudes and preferences regarding mailing services. The findings indicate that the inherent meaning and value within letters have not been fully tapped into or showcased, and there is a pressing need for online solutions that cater to users' social needs and emotional support. Thus, this study, focusing on the preservation of letter traces and memories, the collection of stamps, postmarks, and postcards, as well as the establishment of new pen pal connections, puts forth seven design concepts for potential future hybrid communication services, offering fresh perspectives for the advancement of traditional postal letter services.

References

[1]
Liz Stanley. 2015. The Death of the Letter? Epistolary Intent, Letterness and the Many Ends of Letter-Writing. Cultural Sociology 9, 2 (2015), 240-255.
[2]
David M. Henkin. 2008. The Postal Age. University of Chicago Press.
[3]
So Jung Bang, Yoonji Song, Jae Dong Kim, Kiseul Suh, Chung-Kon Shi, Graham Wakefield, and Sungju Woo. 2014. Digital Love Letter: A Handwriting Based Interface for Non-instant Digital Messenger. Human-Computer Interaction. Applications and Services (2014), 103-113.
[4]
George Myerson. 2001. Heidegger, Habermas and the Mobile Phone. Icon Books.
[5]
Jon Stratton. 1997. The Rise and Rise of Email Affairs. Media International Australia 84, 1 (1997), 28-38.
[6]
Milne Esther. 2003. Email and Epistolary technologies: Presence, Intimacy, Disembodiment. The Fibreculture Journal.
[7]
Jane Haggis and Mary Holmes. 2011. Epistles to Emails: Letters, Relationship Building and the Virtual Age. Life Writing 8, 2 (2011), 169-185.
[8]
Noam Chomsky and Jean-Baptiste Guignard. 2011. Beyond Linguistic Wars. An Interview with Noam Chomsky. Intellectica. Revue de l 56, 2 (2011), 21-27.
[9]
Heikki Nikali. 2008. Substitution of Letter Mail for Different Sender–Receiver Segments. Competition and Regulation in the Postal and Delivery Sector (2008).
[10]
Myk Pono. 2018. Competitive Analysis: How To Conduct A Comprehensive Competitive Analysis. Retrieved from https://www.mykpono.com/how-toconduct-competitive-analysis/
[11]
Alexandra Georgakopoulou and Tereza Spilioti. 2020. The Routledge Handbook of Language and Digital Communication. Routledge.
[12]
Piia Varis and Mingyi Hou. 2019. Digital approaches in linguistic ethnography. The Routledge Handbook of Linguistic Ethnography (2019), 229-240.
[13]
Daniel Varisco. 2019. Culture Still Matters: Notes From the Field. (2019).

Recommendations

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences
CHCHI '23: Proceedings of the Eleventh International Symposium of Chinese CHI
November 2023
634 pages
ISBN:9798400716454
DOI:10.1145/3629606
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 27 February 2024

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Check for updates

Author Tags

  1. Communication services
  2. Letter collections
  3. Letter values
  4. Memory archives

Qualifiers

  • Research-article
  • Research
  • Refereed limited

Conference

CHCHI 2023
CHCHI 2023: Chinese CHI 2023
November 13 - 16, 2023
Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 17 of 40 submissions, 43%

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

  • 0
    Total Citations
  • 22
    Total Downloads
  • Downloads (Last 12 months)22
  • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)3
Reflects downloads up to 20 Jan 2025

Other Metrics

Citations

View Options

Login options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

HTML Format

View this article in HTML Format.

HTML Format

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

Share

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media