formal writing
I tend to agree, sort of. I view written English as different from spoken English, more formal. Hence, I use few contractions in writing, which means that my style, as people are always telling me, is stiff, pedantic, pretentious, elegant, old-fashioned, (choose one or more), depending on who is doing the telling. However, I have developed a new, freer style more like spoken English for e-mail and chat-room purposes, which I feel are supposed to be a sort of written conversation.