Mourning the Death of Handwriting

time.com

5 points·kennyroo··5 comments

physicians -- whose illegible handwriting on charts and prescription pads causes thousands of deaths a year

Holy shit! That sounds like a way more interesting article to write than this one. Is that seriously true?

"I worry that cursive will go the way of Latin and that eventually we won't be able to read it," says Garcia. "What if 50 years from now, kids can't read the Declaration of Independence?"

Reading these documents already requires some trouble, especially since (to today's eyes) they were authored by the "Continental Congrefs".

This article seems to be claiming that computers and text messaging are responsible for the final decline in handwriting, but I grew up before personal computers were ubiquitous (I was born in 1977) and cursive was already heavily deemphasized in the schools I went through. I don't recall a single teacher who wouldn't accept hand printed work.

Well, I'm 37 and never have had good handwriting much preferring to type all of my life.

I have horrible handwriting, but in high school I decided to mimic my father's draftsman-quality printing. Depending on the audience of what I'm writing (typically just myself), my penmanship ranges from illegible to very neat. I still prefer to use a pen and paper for a journal and most note-taking, too.

I've ended up on the opposite side of the spectrum - back when I was working as a developer in an office, I used to write something at least once a day and that kept my handwriting in check.

However, ever since I started working from home, I just type everything. I was even nervous signing a credit card slip the other day as the merchant's chip and pin terminal was broken.

I do envy your good habit of using pen and paper for journal/note-taking!

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