Most of the emails I send (15,745 since January, 2007!) are routine. More than you might imagine are substantive and pastoral. The value of correspondence has not dimmed. It simply has changed delivery methodology.
I was struck therefore by this quote from Armand Nicholi in his fascinating little book The Question of God regarding the priority that C. S. Lewis gave to letter writing.
“He answered every letter sent him, from those by important leaders to those by a child or a widow he did not know. He answered them daily, before undertaking his hectic work schedule. ‘The mail, you know, is the great hurdle at the beginning of each day’s course for me, ‘ Lewis writes to [a] friend. ‘I have sometimes had to write letters hard from 8:30 to 11 o’clock before I could start my own work. Mostly to correspondents I have never seen. I expect most of my replies to them are useless: but every now and then people think one has helped them and so one dare not stop answering letters.'” (page 185)
Concerning the ‘widow he did not know’, I suggest watching this.