We are not writing letters on paper anymore because email is fast and more convenient. We don't use the pen or pencil to take notes in libraries because our research is done online and notes are often stored in digital scrapbooks or Word documents for easy retrieval.
Two years ago, I remember my niece in Maryland carrying a Tablet PC to her classroom - she had just entered teens and would often complete her school homework typing on the computer keyboard instead of writing on traditional paper notebooks.
Not just keyboards, handwriting recognition software of your touch-screen Tablet, Digital Pen or PDA have become so efficient that you can scribble the way you like and it will be read correctly. That further reduces the need for learning good or even legible handwriting skills.
When SAT exams introduced handwritten essays, just 15 percent of the almost 1.5 million students wrote their answers in cursive. Everyone else printed block letters because they were not used to writing with Pen. [WP]
Handwriting may soon become a lost art with not just the younger generation but even with old timers like Mark Cuban who very frankly admits -& ;"I forgot how to write".
Mark went to a meeting without his laptop and missed noting the important points because he couldn't write fast enough though he can touch type pretty fast. His comment - "Is writing with a pen on a pad of paper not like riding a bike ??"
In the digital age, we aren't writing any less but the medium has shifted from pen or pencil to the keyboard. Maybe it's time to rephrase the old saying - "the pen keyboard is mightier than the sword".
Related: Cursive Handwriting Meets Blogging
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