HOLIDAY GREETING CARDS -- EMAIL TIMELINES

Short holiday letters with no greeting cards for the first time were what I mailed this year.  I guess sending holiday greeting cards are a thing of the past for me now.   Not many left with which to engage in our traditional holiday activity with personal updates, caring messages as we caught up with each others year.  I really miss sending and receiving all those cards and letters as occurred in yesteryear but that was then, and this is now.  Actually, I've also missed letter exchanges throughout the rest of the year, though there have been a few emails, but not quite the same. 

Frank Sinatra 

"I'm Gonna Sit Right Down (And Write Myself A Letter)

Swing Easy!  Album -- 1998 Capitol Records, LLC

What is it with email that when I receive one that I feel I must respond quickly, likely even the next day, or is that just my reaction and others don't feel that way?   I can see such promptness is a good business practice, but should that timeline apply with personal correspondence?

I still remember the days before we had the internet, do you?  How did you stay in contact with friends and family who lived some distance from you?   Did you exchange phone calls -- calls that perhaps were long distance, incurring additional charges?  Did you also exchange letters written back and forth -- handwritten, or typed on those now old-fashioned devices called typewriters, manual or electric?  (I still have two.)

Personal letter exchanges were often spaced weeks or months apart.  After finding time and getting in a writing mood to respond, the letters took a number of days for the U.S. Postal Service to transport, then deliver them.    Corresponding parties were quite accepting of such a time gap in contact.  Then, we got the internet with email.  Suddenly, seems like people began expecting much quicker responses, almost to the point of being instant or, at least next day.   Just how many days can be acceptably allowed to lapse before sending a response to a friend's email?

This came to mind when someone with whom I had recent contact sent me a short email two days after receiving my email noting that life was hectic right then, but a response would be coming on the weekend.  I appreciated receiving that thoughtful note, but it did set me thinking and recalling how years ago if we'd been exchanging letters, a week, maybe two, or even more could have gone by which would have simply been not only expected but quite acceptable by both parties.  There would have been no need to write explaining a delay.  What is an acceptable response timeline now?

This was an issue for me when I first began using a computer, sending emails.  I took my cues about what the expected frequency behavior was from those who were longtime email users now emailing me.  What occurred is that the primary person with whom I was first emailing, other than my adult children, was a new acquaintance.  That person almost always responded to my emails the next day at the latest and if later apologized for the delay.   I concluded this very prompt response was the accepted timeline expected with emails and tried to do the same which often created extreme pressures for me.

Quite some time passed before I began to realize a next day response was probably an ideal business practice, but my correspondence with this person I believed to be personal, not business.  So, I didn't realize until much later I did not need to respond so promptly even though the other person continued the rapid response.    I had begun to feel like a hamster on a wheel trying to keep up before finally ceasing to  do so.  I wish I had known this in the beginning, but I had thought I should follow what appeared to me to be the expected digital internet-world timeline for email correspondence.   

Do you have timelines you follow with email correspondence?  Are they different than when you corresponded with hand-written or typed letters years ago, including business versus personal with family and friends?