From: The Guardian
Handwriting vs typing: is the pen still mightier than the keyboard?
The Guardian:
In the past few days you may well have scribbled out a shopping list on the back of an envelope or stuck a Post-it on your desk. Perhaps you added a comment to your child’s report book or made a few quick notes during a meeting. But when did you last draft a long text by hand? How long ago did you write your last “proper” letter, using a pen and a sheet of writing paper? Are you among the increasing number of people, at work, who are switching completely from writing to typing?
No one can say precisely how much handwriting has declined, but in June a British survey of 2,000 people gave some idea of the extent of the damage.According to the study, commissioned by Docmail, a printing and mailing company, one in three respondents had not written anything by hand in the previous six months. On average they had not put pen to paper in the previous 41 days. People undoubtedly write more than they suppose, but one thing is certain: with information technology we can write so fast that handwritten copy is fast disappearing in the workplace.
Read the whole story: The Guardian
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Comments
If wiggling a pen, and i’ve one of the best devised by homo sapiens (S. T. Dupont), is neurophysically mirrored into the brain’s regions directly impinging on our thought, language, and imagination, then the shift from wide-scale pen wiggling to finger-dancing across a keyboard, may reflect through civilizations in changing our intelligence, our perception of the world, and what psychic doorways we find fascinating. I suspect our contemplation of language as the road of ideas is the primary governing gate. That gate, however, is conceivably influenced by styles of expression germane to what our fingers do. A worthy scientific study.
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