Blame keyboards? A 2012 study found that 33% of
people had difficulty reading their own handwriting
"I remember I hated it and I told
my teacher I thought it was dumb," he says.
Cronquist, now 26, eventually
learned to like using his left hand to inscribe strings of words. But typing
papers while at the University of North Dakota and choosing a career rooted in
technology drastically decreased the amount he wrote by hand, causing writing in
cursive to become uncomfortable and painful.
So he switched to printing
right-handed while still signing his name with the left.
"I don't even think I know how to
write in cursive anymore," says Cronquist, who now lives and works in Laos.
Technology is constantly
increasing communication speeds, often anticipating words before our brains can
send signals to our fingers. But experts say handwriting is being sacrificed for
the sake of technology's convenience. People like Cronquist say they communicate
so much via laptops, phones and tablets that they rarely need to scribble a
handwritten note.
This trend is reinforced by a
2012 study that found 33% of people had difficulty reading their own
handwriting. Docmail, a
UK-based printing and mailing company, conducted the study and concluded that one in three participants had not
been required to produce something in handwriting for more than half a year. It
also found that updating calendars, phone books and reminder notes was more
likely to be completed without using a pen. Finally, more than half of
participants said their handwriting was noticeably declining.
The state of handwriting in the
United States, which celebrates National Handwriting Day every January 23 -- John Hancock's
birthday -- is not much better, says Wendy Carlson,
a handwriting expert and forensic document examiner. Carlson works as an expert
court witness, maintaining offices in Denver and Dallas. She says the dramatic
decline of handwriting is causing "great" deterioration of the mind.
"Texting played a role in it
because people are trying to write quick short sentences," she says. "People
aren't using their minds and they are relying on technology to make the
decisions for them."
Carlson says cursive writing
combines mental and physical processes which involve both sides of the brain.
She says she's noticed that the number of people who write cursive decreases as
technology becomes the most dominant means of communication.
"If you are typing or texting,
it's a matter of punching and finger-moving," she says. "You are doing very
little thinking because you are not allowing your brain to form neural
processes."
Jan
Olsen is the founder and president of Handwriting Without Tears, a company that creates handwriting
curriculum guides and workbooks for teachers and students from kindergarten
through fifth grade. She says handwriting, especially cursive, is viewed as
old-fashioned by some.
"The only reason to write
anything is to retrieve it later," she said. "So you need to have it
legible."
Cursive requirements in U.S.
public schools have declined as access to technology increases. Alabama,
California, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts and North Carolina require cursive and
several other states are considering it.
The Washington Post reported in April that 45 states have adopted
common core standards for education. Such standards are designed to provoke
thought while at the same time preparing students to pass standardized tests,
but they do not include a cursive learning requirement.
In other words, many kids today
are growing up without having to learn the looping, elegant script that was
demanded of their parents and grandparents.
Going forward, it will be up to
individual states to decide whether to require cursive and then up to school
districts to make it a focal part of the curriculum. Burdened by budget cuts, it
is likely many states and districts will choose to have students type instead of
write.
Olsen, 72, says the writing
styles used in technology and handwriting conflict. Texts and instant messages
require use of communication English, while writing requires use of standard
English, she says. "To achieve in the world, people need to use standard
(English)."
But the irony is that Olsen, who
communicates via text message on her iPhone, says Handwriting Without Tears must
be tech-savvy to remain competitive. In addition to its workbooks, the company
offers an electronic teaching guide and an app.
"At work we have technology up
the kazoo," she says.
Francis Smith, a bank officer
living in Gibraltar, says that while technology allows instantaneous
communication, he is nostalgic about handwriting due to its permanence and
tangibility.
"If there is no electricity,
none of (technology) will work," he says. "Notebooks have served us for a couple
thousand years."
Smith, a former civil servant,
used to write for work, but has spent the last 23 years typing on a PC. He says
it has negatively impacted his handwriting to the point that people would never
guess he won a handwriting contest when he was a child.
"It's a shame that now when you
write quickly it looks like it's by someone who has not had an education," he
says.
Smith, 52, says he's started
using a fountain pen to try to improve his penmanship.
"It's got a lovely feel to it,"
he says. "It's not very practical."
Smith says he wants to recapture
his ability to write cursive. Cronquist, however, is happy that printing allows
him to write legibly.
"My right-handed printing is not
too terrible," he says. "It's slow, but readable."
