Two-part — Why fewer people write by hand and whether this is good

The pen has been losing ground to the keyboard and the touchscreen for a generation, and some adults now write little beyond a signature. This shift has clear practical causes, but I believe that, taken as a whole, it is a loss rather than a gain.

The reasons are mainly ones of efficiency. Typed text is faster to produce, can be corrected without a trace and reaches its reader instantly, whereas a handwritten letter must be posted. Institutions have reinforced the habit: offices run on email, students submit assignments online, and forms that once required ink are completed on a screen. Smartphones have removed the last everyday uses, since shopping lists, diaries and reminders live in apps, and voice dictation means that some messages are not even typed. With so few occasions that demand a pen, the skill falls into disuse.

For routine communication this change is harmless, yet its wider effects are negative. Writing by hand is slow, and that slowness is useful: students taking notes on paper cannot copy every word, so they must condense the lecture into their own phrasing, the very process that fixes ideas in memory. For young children, forming letters trains fine motor control and helps them recognise the shapes they are learning to read. There is a cultural cost as well. In China, Japan and Vietnam, brush calligraphy is an art form, and even ordinary handwriting carries personality in a way no font can, which is why a handwritten note of condolence means more than a text message. Adults who use character-based scripts already report forgetting how to write characters that they can still read and type.

In sum, people have abandoned handwriting because digital tools are quicker and more convenient. However, because the practice underpins early learning and keeps a living heritage intact, I regard its decline as negative, and schools should go on teaching it alongside typing.