Ask HN: Do you send infrequent personal update emails?

In light of declining social media use, and our general reliance on passive communication over the past decade, I'm wondering if people here have a regular habit of writing to distant friends to stay in touch, catch up, and share more personal things with each other than any of the social platforms encourage. My best friend from grad school wrote to me the other day. He lives in London. I live in SV. It'd been 5 years since we last met in person and/or talked via email. He had quit all social media years ago. I was ecstatic to hear from him, and I found our dialogue to be much more meaningful, personal, and in depth than a FB wall post or even messenger.