Disappearing Ink: The End of Handwriting
July 29 2008 / by John Heylin
Category: Education Year: General Rating: 4
August 20th, 1997 – The Day Cursive Died.
If there’s one thing that haunted me all through elementary
school, it was the teachers, constantly reminding us that
practicing cursive was a crucial skill needed in life. Hours each
day were spent preparing for this veritable Hell of a place called
High School where the bullies were bigger, the textbooks were
heavier, and every paper had to be written in cursive. That last
point was hammered in – No teacher in high school would
EVER accept a paper from a student if it
wasn’t written in cursive. 
Then came August 20th, 1997, my first day at high school. The US History teacher shocked me with the words, “Don’t hand-write your papers, I can’t read them they’re so illegible. I’ll only accept typed papers.” I couldn’t believe my luck! I had scored the one teacher that didn’t require students to write papers in cursive. But in reality, every class I had that day I heard the same thing. Cursive is illegible… type everything. All that practice had meant nothing, cursive had been eliminated. It was dead.
The Situation
In an age where airline tickets have gone electronic and bills can be paid online rather than through check, handwriting itself is becoming less and less important in our daily lives. One school teacher even likened learning cursive to teaching kids how to drive a stagecoach when they should be learning how to drive a car. Students these days find it easier and quicker to type up lecture notes than to write it out by hand. The sheer simplicity, efficiency and speed of typing will be the undoing of handwriting.
True, things aren’t looking too bright for longhand writing, but just how bad is it? Online bill pay has killed the check along with credit and debit cards. Blogs, social networking sites and Email has obliterated the need for letters. Resumes are Emailed. Applications are filled out online. All in all, for people who are heavily immersed in the technology of today, writing is no longer important. Sure, there is the occasional Post-it note, the grocery list, or even written instructions. But when you think about some of the technology most futurists say is coming around the corner, these can all be wiped out. Refrigerators that order food for you when your stocks get low. Voice recognition software that makes it quicker to record instructions than to write. Even Post-its could be replaced with flexible electronic paper, endlessly reusable and environmentally safe.
Where Does That Leave Us?
When all is said and done, the future isn’t bright for handwriting. Technology continues to invade every aspect of our lives, making life easier for us, but killing traditional things. The car killed the horse, Gillette killed the straight-edge razor, and computers are killing handwriting. With keyboarding classes already taking the place of cursive in most classrooms (even 3rd graders now take lessons), it seems like only a matter of time until handwriting itself winds up on the shelves of history. Fifty years from now handwriting may indeed be a vestigial ‘organ,’ but we’d be the poorer for losing it.
Image: Michael Surran (Flickr,CC-Attribution)
Comment Thread (4 Responses)
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I recently had teachers who said just email all assignments in. I wonder if digital drawing and painting will kill hand drawn and painted art…
Posted by: AJ0111 July 29, 2008
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I wonder if the benefit of emailing the assignments in is that it’s easier for teachers to see if it’s plagiarism.
Posted by: martymcfly July 29, 2008
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OK, I am a journalism major so I still scribble thousands of lines on notebooks and my palm. So that’s good, I am still writing at least.
With all these “analog” methods going out the window in favor of digital, I will keep writing by hand and shooting 35mm film instead of using digital.
I am a stubborn evolver!
Posted by: dvorak July 30, 2008
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I agree we’d be poorer for losing it. I love writing letters to my friends and receiving them. I’ve had pen pals since elementary school and I’ve kept all the letters I’ve received in shoe boxes..and it’s something I’m just getting back into now that I’ve graduated and want to keep in touch with college friends. Also – What about the Christmas Card? and, the postcard! and notes passed around in class!! or sweet ones left by the toothfairy or in lunchboxes by parents. I feel like in saying that handwriting will die out has larger implications than we think. I really doubt it will though there are too many people interested in art, in creation and personalizing everything..that that just won’t happen…I hope.
Posted by: justinelee July 30, 2008
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