You're not as different from Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin after all, at least when it comes to patterns of correspondence. A new study of human behavior demonstrates that those who wrote letters using pen and paper -- long before electronic mail existed -- did so in a pattern similar to the way people use e-mail today. The study, entitled
On Universality in Human Correspondence Activity, was written by
Dean Malmgren,
Andriana Campanharo,
Daniel Stouffer, and
Luis Amaral.
An example of how digital footprint data can yield important insights, the paper has also garnered attention from the press, with articles highlighting the work in
TIME and
US News and World Report.