App review: Slowly

Penpalling might not be as popular as it used to be back in the day. It’s still a great experience as you can share cultures, ideas, and stories with people who might live thousands of miles away from you. But after the pandemic hit, sending handwritten letters became less convenient. Apps that were created to make the penpalling experience easier began resurfacing during the lockdown. Today, I will be reviewing one such app: Slowly.

HOW TO USE

Initially released in 2017, Slowly retains the essence of Penpalling while making the experience digital. You can create your profile and include your interests, languages you know, a nickname, an avatar, and a small introduction about yourself. Once you create your profile, your account is set and ready to use.

You can auto-match or explore pen pals manually. When exploring manually, you can use filters to find people who share interests with you, live in a specific region, are within an age range, or know a certain language. You can check profiles to find a pen pal. If someone you know has Slowly and you want to add them, you can add them by their Slowly ID. You also have a Slowly ID you can give other people if you want them to add you. You can find this in your settings. Once you find one, it’s time to write a letter!

You can include an introduction about yourself, a story, or a question about a shared interest in your first letter. Show your pen pal that you read their profile. You can ask about something on their profile, ask something about their country, or you can write about your country or culture. Your first letter can have anything! Once you finish your letter, select a stamp and mail it.

Here comes the interesting part. Slowly letters actually take time to be delivered. This time depends on the distance between you and the pen pal. For example, the letters will be delivered within an hour if your pen pal lives within 100km of you. But they can take up to 2 days to be delivered if they live very far from you. This is what makes this whole experience similar to Penpalling and not simply texting or sending an email.

Just like sending letters, you might receive letters too. Once you write back to someone for the first time, they become your Slowly friend. Then you can write back and forth, sharing stories about yourself, your culture, or even simply how your week went. You can also share pictures and audio files if your pen pal accepts your media sharing request or vice versa. If you go to your friend list and click on a friend, you can find all the letters you exchanged with them.

SAFETY

If you come across someone who violates your personal space and makes you feel uncomfortable, you can simply remove them from your friend list or block them. Your personal information such as your birthday, contact details won’t be shared without your consent. The chances of you coming across such people are quite low as you can filter out who can send you letters as well.

STAMPS

What makes the Slowly experience even better is its collection of stamps. If you go to the stamp store, you can see lots of stamps and stamp sets that you can get for free or using your Slowly coins. There are stamps related to special holidays or festivals. By default, you get stamps related to your country, device, and zodiac sign. You also get stamps for certain achievements, such as getting a star from a pen pal, receiving a letter from a certain continent, and receiving or sending a certain number of letters. You can use these stamps when you send letters. You can also add stamps you get from your pen pals to your collection, and even though you can't use these in your own letters, they can make your stamp collection diverse and more interesting.

PROS

As I mentioned above, this app retains the essence of Penpalling while making it easier. Now you can write and send letters from home for free! You can find so many great friends from all over the world and share your culture with them. You can get to know about their culture. You can practice a language with a native speaker. You can even collect stamps!

CONS

No matter how many changes the app makes, this will never be similar to sending and receiving handwritten letters. And even though it’s low, the possibility of meeting someone dangerous is still higher than that of traditional Penpalling.

In conclusion, Slowly is indeed a great app. It makes Penpalling a lot easier. So, if you’re bored in quarantine without anything to do or simply want to meet new people, download Slowly now!

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