It’s a silent epidemic that is taking over the world. Heralded by the World Health Organization as a public health concern and declared an epidemic by the US surgeon general in 2023, loneliness affects at least half of Americans.
Now, doctors and psychologists are prescribing that people resort to the popular trend of letter writing as a cure for loneliness and a way of building new connections.
Christopher Fisher, a psychologist and the director of adult outpatient psychiatry at Northwell Zucker Hillside Hospital in Queens, New York, told the Daily Mail: ‘The digital world is advancing at a pace far faster than human beings have had time to adapt to or emotionally settle into.
‘Returning to old-fashioned activities can help heal parts of ourselves that feel neglected and address emotional voids that have quietly formed.’
Letter writing can trigger nostalgia, which can bring comfort to a person by giving them a ‘sense of safety, belonging, and emotional continuity,’ Fisher said.
According to a November poll by the American Phycological Association (APA), 62 percent of US adults reported societal division as a significant source of stress in their lives.
And beyond this was a deeper, more pervasive emotional strain: loneliness. Half of the 3,000 adults surveyed reported feelings of emotional disconnection, saying they have felt isolated from others (54 percent), felt left out (50 percent), or have lacked companionship (50 percent) often or some of the time, suggesting loneliness may have become a defining feature of life in America.
Hope Reagan Harris was just a little girl when she discovered loneliness for the first time at a sleepaway church camp.
Hope Reagan Harris received daily letters from her mother while at church camp as a child and has used that as inspiration to start a letter writing nonprofit Purpose Doesn’t Pause
Now, Harris sends 140,000 postcards to women all over the world through her Purpose Doesn’t Pause project
Doctors and psychologists, like Christopher Fisher, are encouraging people to get on the letter writing and snail mail trends, as it ‘can help heal parts of ourselves that feel neglected and address emotional voids that have quietly formed’
Like many children away from home for the first time, she was nervous about the trip so her mother pre-wrote her letters to be delivered at the camp everyday and give her a taste of home.
‘Knowing there would be a letter waiting for me gave me comfort,’ Harris, now a mother-of-two herself, told the Daily Mail. ‘I saved every single one. They made me feel brave enough to be away from home.’
Years down the line, when she was studying abroad in Switzerland, she and her now-husband who was in Oklahoma, would send letters to each other to stay in touch.
‘When we were so far apart, [it] meant everything,’ Harris told the Daily Mail. ‘I still have those letters today.’
The act of sending a letter has steeply declined in recent decades, as many have turned to digital communications such as social media, texting and emailing.
For Harris, a stay-at-home mom, she wants to change that. She started a worldwide postcard movement, Purpose Doesn’t Pause, where 140,000 postcards per month are sent from the nonprofit to anyone that requests one.
Many tell Harris the quirky postcards – which are decorated with fun little graphics, like a stack of pancakes or a duck in a swimming tube – arrived a just the right time.
In one case, the tiny 4×6-inch mailer even saved the life of a 17-year-old girl in Iowa, who wrote back to Harris to tell her the postcard stopped her from suicide.
Harris’ postcards are often fun and quirky and are designed to bring joy to women across the world and make them less lonely. One postcard even stopped a girl in Iowa from suicide
Harris’ postcards have made it as far as Uganda, where students proudly showed off their mailers
‘And that’s why this movement matters so deeply to me, because I’ve lived the power of receiving words when I needed them most,’ the Arkansas mother, whose nonprofit relies on donations to cover postage and materials, told the Daily Mail.
‘Mail is slow. It’s intentional. It requires someone to stop, think about you, write your name, and send something just for you. In a world that feels fast, digital, and often isolating, a handwritten postcard says: “You mattered enough for someone to take time.”‘
And Harris – and the 140,000 people receiving her postcards – aren’t the only ones picking up the pen again.
Around 65 percent of Americans still send physical mail at least once a month. And nearly 50 percent of Gen Z, who have been attracted by the analog trend online, are also joining in, according to a November Stamps.com study.
‘Our research shows that mail is still incredibly relevant today,’ Stamps.com general manager Nick Spitzman said in a statement.
‘People rely on mail for those important moments and essential communications that deserve more than a digital message.’
Nearly 40 percent of those surveyed said the physical value of mail and being able to touch it was important to them.
Dr Sanam Hafeez, a NYC-based neuropsychologist and the director of Comprehend the Mind, told the Daily Mail: ‘It also allows the brain to slow down and get a break from constant alerts.
Dr Sanam Hafeez, a NYC-based neuropsychologist, said the activity helps us focus on one thing and have an experience that is ‘more human and lasting’
‘It helps you focus on one thing instead of juggling ten tabs in your head. The physical act of writing can feel calming, almost like a form of mindfulness.
‘There’s something satisfying about creating something you can hold. It makes time feel less rushed and a little more meaningful.’
And the power of the physical paper transcends just the moment of receiving it, but lasts a lifetime.
When one of Rebecca McMillan’s customers was left to face her brother’s death, she found herself without a trace of him. She had no letters or cards or any way to preserve his memory physically.
‘Just one letter would mean the world to her,’ McMillan, who owns a stationery store in Cheltenham, England, told the Daily Mail.
That interaction birthed The Sunday Letter Project, which started with McMillan and her husband, Karl, sitting down with their seven-year-old daughter to write to anyone they wanted to every Sunday.
‘I think the reason that he used to write me letters was because he realized that I also enjoyed art and drawing, and I think he wanted to foster that creativity in me.’
Since the start of The Sunday Letter Project – which expanded into their brand Wildflower Illustration Co in September – 9,000 people across the world have taken the pledge to write a weekly.
Participants can write to strangers or develop pen pals by dropping off letters to participating shops, where shopkeepers pass the parcels onto the respective recipient.
Rebecca McMillan and husband Karl started The Sunday Letter Project after a customer told them a story about losing her brother and not having a single card or letter from him. ‘Just one letter would mean the world to her,’ McMillan said
They sat down with their daughter every Sunday to write a letter to whoever they pleased. They eventually branched the project out to their Wildflower Illustrations Co (pictured)
Girls in India also received the brightly colored postcards from Harris
It is estimated that 450,000 letters will be sent in 2026 from participants. If the growth rate continues, it will be two million letters within five years.
And it wasn’t just her one customer’s touching story that sparked the project. Dozens upon dozens of customers had reminisced about the love of writing and receiving letters, but how they never got around to it. Her customers were craving connection.
‘I think the really beautiful thing about letter writing is that it completely benefits the sender as much as the recipient,’ McMillan told the Daily Mail.
‘I think we spend so long swiping and tapping and kind of creating things in this world that doesn’t even really exist. And it just feels so good to get something into the real world.’
People, like her daughter, are accustomed to the digital world and lack the physicality of the past. Homework and tests are often done on laptops at school, messages can be sent via text and email, even art can be created digitally.
‘I think there’s a whole generation of people who have grown up without almost any kind of physical things,’ she said.
And the transition back to pen and paper goes beyond just letters, as snail mail clubs – whether it be poems or artwork – have also boomed online, many with monthly subscriptions cheaper than a cup of coffee.
Brittany V Wilder, an artist and poet based in Pennsylvania, launched her Poem Club in June 2024. Each month, 1,800 participants receive a poem written by Wilder or a featured poet wrapped in a letter that explains the poems’ deeper meanings and her headspace while she wrote it for the sum of $8.
Brittany V Wilder, an artist and poet based in Pennsylvania, launched her Poem Club in June 2024. It has since garnered 1,800 subscribers
Snail mail clubs often cost less than a cup of coffee and support local artists. Wilder’s poem club cost $8 per month, her postcard club cost $5
In 2024, the US Postal Service saw 10.7 billion single pieces of first-class mail
She has let readers into her breakups, her marriage, her favorite memories, and even her insecurities through the project.
‘It’s a little bit like a safer space, I guess, to be vulnerable,’ Wilder told the Daily Mail.
Wilder encourages her fellow poets to write her back, and said many have.
‘I love when people write me,’ she said. She sees around six or seven people per month who write her back. They, too, are allowing their vulnerability to shine through, talking about their relationships and life, moments they might not have admitted to in real life.
‘I’ve gotten some really good letters back,’ Wilder said.
She also has a Postcard Club running for $5 a month, and back in 2015, she had a zine club. She’s noticed the recent trend in mail clubs online, and although she doesn’t see them staying as popular long-term, she does believe its buyers are looking for the same thing: Connection.
‘I definitely think people are craving tangible things,’ she said. ‘People just want to feel connected to the real world… it’s been a long time of not feeling that way.
‘So, [mail clubs are] something that you can justify spending every month, and you feel like you get something real out of it. And you also get to support an artist.’
Join the debate
Is relying on handwritten letters the real answer to our loneliness crisis in a digital age?
