By Rick Garcia
Since the early dawn of mankind the origins of communication began with cave paintings. As civilization and progress had begun, so did the evolution of these pictographs which converted to Cuneiform, Runes, Hieroglyphic and ultimately Alphabetic writing.
In a span of over 30,000 years people had relied on the art of handwriting to whatever form, language and origin of country to keep the momentum of human progress move forward into a modern world, where, within just 20 years, we now are literally seeing the “writing on the wall” for handwriting. Will it become extinct?
As a communication professional, I have seen a lot of changes in how people exchange information, moving from handwriting to digital. Certainly digital communications is more efficient, but does our new reliance on technology put the “art” of communication at risk?
Martha Stewart’s Living magazine recently published a piece titled “Is Handwriting Becoming Extinct?” According to this article, written by Joanne Chen, preliminary evidence suggests that writing with a keyboard doesn’t engage your brain the way writing with pen and paper does; it’s more detached and abstract. “We’re in a rush to digitize everything, as if fast and efficient are always positive things,” says Anne Mangen, a postdoctoral fellow at Oslo and Akershus University in Norway, who has written extensively on handwriting and the brain. “It’s worrisome that there’s not enough awareness to how movement can affect the mind”-whether it’s wielding a pen or thumbing through papers.
The article goes on to state studies that were done showing both preschoolers and adults learning a foreign alphabet retained more-and for a longer period of time-when they learned by writing rather than a computer. Of course, they have long suggested that writing by hand-notes, diaries, lists-is helpful to those with memory loss. As Thierry Olive, a research scientist at the National Center for Scientific Research, in Paris, explains, handwriting involves more movement than typing. “Handwriting is a visual-spatial activity,” says Olive, which might explain why you remember appointments better when you pen them on a calendar than when you type them into a smartphone.
It goes on to say, “Given the flourishes and filigrees of penmanship, it stands to reason that handwriting can foster creativity.
As for Cursive writing, which was once considered an essential part of the elementary school curriculum, is now becoming a prime target for abandonment in most states. I remember how we were drilled using the line and perforated paper and the plume linear chalkboard as we curled strokes of letters joined together to make words resemble handwriting.
One may think that Cursive writing is outdated and obsolete and because spend most of our time on a computer typing emails, sending tweets, thumb-messaging friends on IM, Vine or Facebook. As simple and innocent as these actions may be, it should alarm you to witness the regression our language has made in such a short time. Our everyday vocabulary as we know it is continually being assaulted by LOL, OMG, JK, and a whole bunch of other acronyms.
While none of us will be giving away our computers or smartphones anytime soon, knowing that “old school” handwriting helps our memory as well as it makes us more creative, well, that’s enough of a reason to do it more often.
Do yourself a favor and ask a young person (your children, grandchildren, nephew or niece) send a nice handwritten note to someone they care or like. Who knows? They’ll probably learn something about their inner-abilities. A nice thing about a good old-fashioned handwritten note is that it is unique to one’s style and you can’t delete it.
Rick Garcia, a nonprofit executive, a civil rights advocate, blogger and a contributing writer for The New Citizens Press can be reached at rrgarcianrg@gmail.com
This was printed in the October 20, 2013 – November 2, 2013 Edition
