The Postbox

My postbox is back in operation. The box that is standing in front of my house. During the advent of the Lunar Year of the Pig, someone had pulled it out of its position and thrown the box on the street. And this is not even a Sydney suburb.

I had then just put a shiny new label sticker requesting for no advertising material - thank you. That was in January, and now after the Easter holidays, I was back at the local Bunnings hardware store to get a repalcement sticker. I used to read the colourful, well printed brochures but am now weary of them. Hey it all adds to the cost of a product or service. The printing is of high quality and so must be the costs of producing them. There must be a better way of marketing!

With the internet and email, what turns up in a snail mail postbox are mainly commercial stuff, like bills to pay, magazines (if one still reads the hand-held version) and advertising materials. Whatever happened to the written letter from home or faraway? Thankfully, I still receive the odd postcard from my wanderer traveller friends.

Now, instead of standing by a postbox and eagerly anticipating a message from a loved one, one relishes this experience in front of an electronic screen. What shall we do in an energy blackout or during a cyberspace virus attack?

It is already a common scene now for one to read mail, magazines and news in electronic form on one channel of the family room monitor, or kitchen screen, or in the privacy of a study room cyberspace window to the world. This interface not only provides entertainment, live chats face-to-face and storage media, but is an outlet to order food, clothes and services. Need we even get out to work? Maybe not for some.

While making it an all efficient one stop of interfacing with the world, the resulting lack of human contact can cause problems - or opportunities. There may be a backlash against this cosy, cocooned world where physical touch, sensory social encounters and visual immediacy become rare and eventually treasured so much they command a hefty price. Think about it. The old adage " smell the roses" becomes not just nostalgic, but in actual demand.