Why Handwriting Is Dying...which is both a good and bad thing bad thing.

In an outstanding essay last week, Anne Trubek explored how the art of handwriting may have died...but that it is not going away anytime soon...nor is it a bad thing. While historically, hand-writing has been associated with intelligence, education, and position in society (aka the "good hand"), today, that is no longer the case. None the less, as she notes in her essay, "handwriting is not going away anytime soon, but it is going" and that is not necessarily a bad thing.

On this topic, I am truly torn. For starters, I truly value the speed, efficiency and capabilities that modern technology has brought to communication. Everyday, I use a cellphone, internet, instant messaging, Twitter, Facebook, email (about five accounts), and of course, this blog. Unquestionably, these mediums have allowed me to do more and communicate better and more efficiently than ever before. Yes, I occasionally also send a letter or two...but that is usually because the person I am communicating with doesn't use one of the above options (call this the Grandma rule). In fact, Ms. Trubek rightfully notes that it is speed, and to a certain extent democratization that these new mediums have given us and we should not forsake the benefits of these technologies for some nostalgic view of handwriting.

On the other hand, I do agree that the loss of good handwriting is a bit sad. For starters, we still write things all-of-the-time in our daily lives. One example, some of my notes when preparing for this blog. Additionally, there is still something to be said about sending a hand-written note for correspondence, etc. For me personally, I view my lack of skilled handwriting as embarrassing. Sure, I still manage on a daily basis, but I do regret never learning to properly write in cursive and instead, reverting to a lazy (and barely legible) print every time I need to write something down.

Frankly, I do have a bit of jealousy for those people that write well and ummm...attractively. The irony all of this is that the reason I never learned to write well was that during that class in Elementary school, when every one else was learning proper penmanship, I was pulled out for a "gifted and talented" class. Yep...at my elementary school, if you were GT, you basically were not taught how to write.

In my opinion, the real challenge to the brain of the youth today is not handwriting vs. technology...but how the advent of the spell checker eliminated the need to know how to spell. Maybe that is the reason why we have all embraced technology. After all, no one has invented the spell checker for handwriting. Perhaps a topic for another day.

LINK: Miller-McCune: Handwriting is History