Handwriting is irrelevant

[Lazybones]

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1165272610506&call_pageid=968332188492

I still remember having to write my tests and notes all the way through high school, and still take notes in post secondary. I never considered it optional.

However now after years of sitting behind a computer, I must say I forget how to form some of the letters as well, I have even gone to look them up on line from time to time.

[Shayne]

I've been "printing" ever since the beginning.  we were taught cursive obviously, but when doing tests and such I always printed.  Handwriting is sort of dead though, i can type over 50 words a minutes and I would be hard pressed to print out 30.

[Darren Dirt]

My 8 year old daughter is very proud of herself with her ability to handwrite (newly acquired skill this year) so I printed a page a b c d e... for her in Word, using one of the better cursive fonts. But I casually mentioned how rarely most adults use it (trying hard to not discourage her of course) and how most people find printing quickly is good enough (or typing, of course).

Surely 30 years from now, after Armageddon and the Pulse make all electronics just ugly paperweights, she will be a renowned caligraphist or poet or something, while the rest of us print along at 30 wpm (more like 10, maybe 20 )


Well, at least most of us can still do long division by hand, adding mixed fractions, etc. etc.

Right?

[Tonnica]

I can still do cursive writing, and it isn't too bad looking either. My printing has degraded badly in quality though - years of taking quick notes has forced some bad habits on me that sacrifices readability for speed. It takes twice as long as me to handwrite something than to print because I watch what I'm doing (and of course the extra time it takes to print without connecting strokes between letters).

I think the heart of handwriting going kaput is because both of the original intended uses are now easier to do by typing or printing:
1) Fast note-taking (someone trained well in cursive writing is supposed to be able to record notes faster than someone printing the letters)
2) Making your writing difficult to read so the church can't tell you're writing crazy flying devices and how the world may not be flat (now replaced by alternate verbiage. See: ROFLCOPTER)

[Darren Dirt]

Goal # 2 is easily accomplished with fonts such as Wingdings/Webdings ... especially when writing technical manuals that you know won't get read

[Thorin]

I don't see the art of handwriting as having died.  The kids are still learning it in school, and they are in fact allowed to write cursively for tests and such.  In fact, my son is just as excited as Darren's daughter to have mastered it, and writes almost everything in cursive nowadays.

When I was little and used cursive a lot in school, my parents also printed most things they wrote down.  I think it's just that as you get older and leave school, typically you simply write a lot less and end up printing to make things easier to read for others.

[Thorin]

Reading the story, I realized that what they're trying to say is not that young kids don't use it, but that older kids don't use it.  That may very well be true.  I plan to keep the art and mystery of writing alive by having the kids write actual letters to family and friends around the world, though.  The in-laws are helping with that - they ask for letters to be sent to friends they made in Cuba.

[Darren Dirt]

As a kid growing up, I remember my mom used to write a half-dozen letters every week, usually 3-8 pages long each. Handwritten.

Looking back, I'm very impressed. And a bit sad that I didn't "carry on the tradition". Email just isn't the same.

Maybe I'll encourage my daughter more to keep alive this artform.

[Shayne]

Why not email?  It takes near 0 time, requires 0 postage and you can have many replies go back and forth in small time period.  For the few people without computers I suppose this becomes an issue and for those few people I still type my letters to be sent, its just faster and if i make a mistake I can hit the backspace key.

If/when I have kids, i wont push the subject, its been replaced with a faster and better system.

[Tom]

I never did learn to handwrite properly. specially the capitals. And its virtually incomprehensible My printing isn't much better. Never has been.

[Thorin]

Why not email?  It takes near 0 time, requires 0 postage and you can have many replies go back and forth in small time period.  For the few people without computers I suppose this becomes an issue and for those few people I still type my letters to be sent, its just faster and if i make a mistake I can hit the backspace key.

If/when I have kids, i wont push the subject, its been replaced with a faster and better system.

Very true.  Email is great for sending quick notes back and forth.  But writing a letter is much more than sending a quick note somewhere.  It's putting your thoughts and feelings down in what becomes a short story (hopefully not fiction) for the recipient to read.  This process helps the writer learn to plan the structure of their writing, to scan their writing for grammatical and spelling errors, to write something interesting.

For the few people without computers I suppose this becomes an issue

Around 86% of the world's population still don't have computers (world population is approximately 6.5 billion according to page 6 of http://www.prb.org/pdf06/06WorldDataSheet.pdf, PCs-In-Use is approximately 900 million according to http://www.c-i-a.com/pr0506.htm).  In Canada, only 28% of the population don't have computers (Canada's population is about 32 million, PCs-In-Use is about 23 million).  Of course, these percentages are based off the idea that each computer is used by a different person.  Some people (like many of the members of this forum) have more than one.  Some people share one computer with others (such as the guy with one laptop who lets his neighbours use it down in Cuba).  My point is, there are still lots of people that don't have (regular) access to a computer to check their email, and snail-mail is more likely to reach them on time.  If you happen to correspond with people outside of the industrialized nations, or even with people who are technology-averse - we tend to forget that members of this forum do not represent the typical cross-section of the city, province, or country that we live in, simply because there aren't any truly tech-averse people on here.

if i make a mistake I can hit the backspace key

Most people don't bother correcting their grammar or spelling when using an Instant Messenger, email, or even posting on a forum.  Most people expect the *computer* to catch mistakes and correct them, thanks to the introduction many moons ago of the spell checker.

If/when I have kids, i wont push the subject, its been replaced with a faster and better system.

Faster, yes, if the recipient has the proper hardware to receive it.  Better, that depends on what qualities you're looking for.  Obviously, you're looking at speed and assuming appropriate infrastructure is in place.  But what if the qualities you're looking for is that you want your communication to be read like a story, treasured, and written while laying on a sandy white beach far away from any blinking machines or computers?

I won't tell my kids they have to write their letters by hand, but I will ensure that they know how so that if they decide on their own to do it, that they can.  And so far, honestly, my oldest would rather write a letter by hand than type it up.  But if he's not writing a letter, just chatting with a friend, he will use email and IM to do so.

[Shayne]

I guess I like to believe that the world is a lot smaller with the invention and implementation of the phone, email and IM that the need to write out a long letter about thoughts and feelings has become a thing of the past.

I used to get a letter from my grandparents every birthday and xmas inside my card.  in the last 3 years they have all gotten computers and now i get emails every few weeks with the simple "hows it going, and these are the events that have happened since last time" it makes keeping in touch and overall communication so much easier.

[Mags]

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1165272610506&call_pageid=968332188492

I still remember having to write my tests and notes all the way through high school, and still take notes in post secondary. I never considered it optional.

However now after years of sitting behind a computer, I must say I forget how to form some of the letters as well, I have even gone to look them up on line from time to time.

Totally in the same boat as Lazy. I also find that I can't write paragraphs and essays anymore either, just so used to condencing everything for quick emails, im's, or online chat.

[Thorin]

I guess I like to believe that the world is a lot smaller with the invention and implementation of the phone, email and IM that the need to write out a long letter about thoughts and feelings has become a thing of the past.

Yes, the need is no longer there (so long as we're communicating with people who have necessary infrastructure to receive our electric/electronic messages) but for some people the desire still is.  This is why I agree with the original article that knowledge of handwriting is no longer required, yet I still want all my kids to get good at it in case they want to use it in the future.

On a side note, I agree with the studies that show that the North American population is becoming less adept at writing in general; not just  penmanship, but also grammar, spelling, cohesive on-topic structure, etc.  If this trend continues to the extreme, we'll end up with an elite group who perform writing functions for us as we use pictures to indicate thoughts, feelings, and ideas.  That doesn't sound so bad, until you realize that same sentence could describe a typical medieval European community.

[Mr. Analog]

From now on I'm handwriting all my Latin...