I personally check my e-mail one hundred times a day. Right now I have in my inbox an e-mail from my mom, an email from ebay informing me of a lost bid, and thirty-five emails from companies I neither know nor care to read about. I could only imagine how many more of these emails I would have if I didn’t turn on my “no spam” button.

Sometimes I get e-mails from H&M. I love H&M. It’s the only store a broke college guy can walk into and feel like he can actually afford something. Sadly, I never notice these e-mails in time. I watch sales go out the window. I missed the coveted David Beckham collection when it was on sale, and by the time I saw they had red jeans on sale they were no longer in fashion, nor were they available.

Then I did something I thought only old people did in re-runs of the Golden Girls. I signed up to receive the H&M physical catalog. Being a kid who practically grew up connected to the Internet Matrix style, this seemed a little out of character. But when it came, I felt a connection to the brand that I hadn’t felt from the emails.

According to a case study done at Millward Brown and the Centre for Experimental Consumer Psychology at Bangor University, what I experienced has scientific backing. To sum up the case study, the UK’s royal mail wanted to figure out if people preferred direct mail marketing or digital advertising so they hired a bunch of scientists to conduct studies with MRIS. What they found was that physical materials produced more brain response connected with internal feelings, suggesting greater “internalization” of the ads. The parts of the brain associated with emotional engagement were activated more by physical ads than online material.

This explains why consumers prefer direct mail over e-mail. They simply like how it makes them feel. They feel important, not lost in a sea of neverending corporate e-mails.

I’d call this whole direct mail thing “retro” (and I bet anyone born after 1985 might also), but I can’t. Simply because direct mail never stopped being fashionable.