Do You Even Check Your Mail?

I was a bit sheepish in admitting my civic sin to a few friends over drinks. I don’t check my mailbox every day. No, I don’t mean email, Twitter DM, Skype Messaging, LinkedIn inbox, Snapchat message, Slack, or Facebook Messenger. I mean the mailbox, the physical thing, the box into which a government employee stuffs paper.
For more than a century, the mailbox was the center of all human communication. Legends grew up around it. Even today, you can buy fancy ones as decorations. The 1923 law mandating that every American have a mailbox is still in force.
But increasingly, decorations is all they are. After I admitted that I only check my mail once a week, another person at the bar piped up and said he only checks it once a month.
Then a twenty something at the table said: ‘What is with you? I only check my mail as the last step before moving out of an apartment!’
Hilarity ensued.
So then we talked about what is in the mailbox. Well, it’s the physical equivalent of spam. That’s mostly it. Bills are digital now. Same with bank statements. There are Christmas cards of course but those have been long in decline. Mom might send something in the mail, maybe. Sometimes if an order from Amazon is small enough, it can be stuffed in there.
The mailbox is not entirely obsolete, but it is getting there.

This post was published at Mises Canada on JUNE 30, 2016.