The mail arrives, and you sort through it, trashing advertisements, setting aside bills, and deciding which of the catalogues you may actually look at, but a letter always gets opened first.
Letters are scarcer than they used to be.
These days even post offices send messages electronically. If you want to know something right away, that's the big advantage to it. Speed is coupled with convenience. There's no need to buy stamps or walk to the mailbox. A couple of key strokes and, presto, your typed message can be accessed by a computer on the other side of the globe.