At present I answer about 100 letters a month, and read 300 emails.
Telling your story out loud is the way human beings communicate. We don't normally think up words, translate how to spell them and then move our fingers up and down over this randomly arranged set of keys to make the same letters appear on a screen.
My mother speaks of my step being a source of life-long pain to her, that it is a living death, etc. By the same post I had several letters from anxious relatives, telling me that it was my duty to come home and thus ease my mother's anxiety.
Letters are expectation packaged in an envelope.
Feedback is a pleasant thing. I get a lot of letters from unexpected people in unexpected places.
Another nice thing was that I would type out letters home for the admiral's stewards. They would then feed me the same food the admiral ate.