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Did you ever have a penfriend when you were younger?

Started by Ewan · 10 months ago

I came across this post on a forum this morning. We’ve got countless, countless alerts, feeds and whatnot — all around texting, SMS and mobile. Tia’s forum post popped up:
Would you like to be email or text friends?
Hello! my name is Tia, im ... Continue reading »

11 comments

  • Kip Hakes

    10 months ago

    God yeah I did - wrote to them for years, met a few times and lost touch.. How quaint!

    :)

    K
    reply
  • Sam Tring

    10 months ago

    Our primary school set up a scheme with an American school where we each had a penfriend. The American school paid for all their kids to come over and meet us, we weren't so lucky (tight bad stuarts).

    Today's penfriends are or rather were (since they no longer allow you to poke the randoms) the random adds on facebook?!
    reply
  • MarkW

    10 months ago

    I used to have a penfriend in Malaysia when I was in my early teens. We wrote for ages and then just kind of stopped. I spose Facebook and its ilk are the modern replacement. Things have moved on I imagine.
    reply
  • JOhn

    10 months ago

    Don't the call this sort of thing "grooming" nowadays?
    reply
  • Ewan

    10 months ago

    Heh!

    2008/8/28 Disqus <>
    reply
  • Anthony

    10 months ago

    I used to have a pen-friend in Germany, met her on a school trip to Paris ;o) It would've been a crazy time for her as the Wall had just come down but you don't care about those little things when your young!
    reply
  • Ewan

    10 months ago

    What do teenagers do now? Do they still *write*?

    2008/8/28 Disqus <>
    reply
  • Samantha

    10 months ago

    Do you mean write letters?

    The last time I wrote a letter, it was a letter of complaint to my headteacher about the lack of ICT staff at my school. Other than that... No.

    I reserve letter writing for when E-mail seems too casual.

    I've never had a pen-pal either, although I do have a number of online friends, mainly from America - they love the English accent - and some others too.

    Letter writing was never encouraged by my primary school, or secondary school though.

    Sad really, I always wanted a pen-pal when I was younger.

    Samantha.
    reply
  • LeilR

    10 months ago

    As per observation, instead of snail mails, teens and tweens would rather make friends or pals via facebook and myspace, or go to online chat communities. Then, by the time they made new friends, they would start communicating via email. They prefer the fast way. :)
    reply
  • issaham

    10 months ago

    I had a pen-pal in France that I actually 'wrote' to in french and she would write back in english. I now have a few 'keyboard' pals in China.

    It's really cool and I'll hopefully have a few pieces up on those interactions soon.

    I find it very useful to have life perspective from another part of the world and it also helps my language proficiency. I think every teen should have a pen-pal.
    reply
  • Samantha

    10 months ago

    I agree with that everyone should have a pen-pal!
    I love the ability to openly speak about yourself to someone else who doesn't know you. It's all free of judgement and critism.

    In a rather perculiar manner, I'm probably more open about myself to strangers (or atleast Online Buddies), than sometimes to my "real" friends.

    Odd really... Although I think it's just my personality more than anything, I've always been a bit of an introvert!

    (See what I mean about revealing loads!)

    Samantha.
    reply

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