Once upon this evening deary, as I type this, weak and weary, typeface seeming not so eerie, I'll ask you handwriting theory... Humans have been writing for centuries, and it might not be incorrect that our brains are at least somewhat adapted to writing by hand and reading individuals' script. However, computers and especially electronic text communication is killing that, and quickly. Don't get me wrong, typing is very useful: you can read it no matter who wrote it, it transfers easily across data transfer, and it's understood by computers 100x easier than them reading human writing. So is writing by hand even important any more? On top of that, do you enjoy writing by hand? Feeling the drag of the graphite or the pen, feeling the paper, being unbounded automatic line-breaks and spacing? Do you put effort into your handwriting, or is it naturally good or hopelessly bad? Do you think writing will ever be entirely obsolete, replaced by typing and voice-to-text? ---- I started putting effort into my own handwriting just over a year ago. I started seeing doctors' handwriting a lot more often, and noticed how unbearably awful it usually was. And that started a change for me! I started to write carefully and slowly, making sure every letter and number was obvious: no more having mixing up capital A with capital D! But at the same time my in-a-hurry writing got even worse, so now I'm writing like a doctor when I'm not focusing. Oops. Good news is my slow-and-deliberate writing has even been complimented more often than ever for me, and that never happened to me until I was in college! I would be sad to see writing-by-hand go away entirely. Not only is it useful for when computers and audio recorders/converters aren't around, but you can convey a lot of yourself through your handwriting, and it can be a very personal, an extra human touch. You, dear reader, have no proof that I'm not a very articulate bot. But if I wrote this note by hand and gave it to you on paper, I think you would be even more aware that I'm human too. A human spent time dragging this pen across paper and making his As rounded and his 0s slashed his Ks somehow looking like they're upside down. I, a person, did it in a different way than every other person, and you could reply the same way.
The main goal of my handwriting is to make sure that everyone can read it and that is about it. My mother says that she's going to teach me how to do better but with technology taking over everything, that might not be needed later through the years and besides that, my typing skills have surpassed my handwriting by at least a long ways since my classes have started to need that skill more than my own personal handwriting. Not only that, my medical condition has made writing more difficult for me, especially when I write for long periods of time. So overall, while handwriting is a skill that can be important, I just find that typing is just easier and faster for me to do.
Oh, hand writing is not going anywhere any time soon. All of my classes here in college are expecting hand written work. Why you may ask? Because have you ever tried to type out the fraction of a cross product of three variables that are within a three dimensional integral? I have, its horrible! Now I do know that certain computer programs can and will convert all that stuff into a pleasing format, but that's usually only used for writing scientific papers and not something for a general audience. Even though the age has become digital, there still are things that can't be put on digital well and thus hand writing is required. I'd say that my typing skills have far surpassed my hand writing skills, only because I write long stories on keyboard, and my physical condition makes my handwriting look terrible and hard to write. That same condition makes it hard to read on a computer monitor. So, either I got to put up with my difficulties of writing on paper or put up with my difficulties of reading on a monitor. Its really a trade off.
I doubt handwriting will ever truly go away to be honest. This may surprise some people, but my handwriting is better than my typing. I can't touch type due to my OCD, I have to look at every key I type. That being said only my cursive is good, my print has always been terrible. Whenever I write in cursive I get tons of compliments. I honestly prefer to write by hand even though it does take me longer. I always hand write christmas cards because they mean so much more due to that human touch. I had to take the time to write it out, not select a card sitting on a shelf and then just sign it. If I ever do have kids, I will teach them cursive myself since the schools around here no longer teach it. Man, when I was a kid cursive was manditory to pass forth and fifth grade. I had to hand write a five page paper on numerous occasions and, If I got one thing wrong I had to rewrite the page.
Oh my writing is horrendous, if I want it to even be legible I have to put in a lot of effort, and it takes forever. And you can forget about my cursive.
After writing in cursive for two years, I have never been able to figure out how to write non-cursive writing neatly. To top it off, my cursive writing is actual poop. The less said about my handwriting, the better.
My handwriting looks nice but I write small. My writing also usually gets smaller as I’m writing. Writing on my ipad is very annoying. I have a bad stylus, and writing with my finger starts to hurt after a while. I’m a lousy typer, I’m very slow and basically only use 2 fingers to type.
My handwriting has gotten a bit better thanks to spending more writing notes, but I still prefer typing. No need to worry about running out of paper or having your hands cramp.
