Where is the handwriting we’ve lost in digital world populated with Arial, Times New Roman, Helvetica, Trebuchet and other fonts? Where
are those pearly letters that strung words into sentences? What happened to the
ubiquitous cursive style that was synonymous with good handwriting? As fountain
pens gave way to ballpoint pens and gel pens, did it also impact the amount and
quality of writing we do with our hands? How quickly we’ve adapted ourselves to
digital screens and have lost our love for the paper and the book! It’s not
without apology that I regret losing my habit of writing with a pen or pencil,
carefully creating those letters, those little strokes that added aesthetic
value. And of course, the joy of getting appreciated for beautiful handwriting. Of late, I notice how illegible my words become, how impatient it feels
to really write something other than filling forms! Isn’t handwriting really at
crossroads?
I couldn’t help going back to my school and
college days, how meticulously we used to write our notes – that was when there
were no short cuts to language and writing, forget about how we’ve dwarfed our
words for texting to suit various digital messaging formats. And we’ve got swept away
with the ease and convenience of keyboards and keypads, compromising the personal
with the impersonal, defying our individual identities with uniform fonts and
their impeccable appearance.
You might wonder, where is the need to
trouble ourselves with pen and paper in the digital world. Especially, when we
are talking about ecofriendly institutions and workplaces where we keep
printing to the minimum. This certainly is the need of the hour, but how do we
account for the loss of a skill that is identified with basic literacy. How do
we keep this skill alive and make sure that it’s practiced and used consciously
in our work life.
I perceive another psychological problem
with this trend: look at the way our mind coordinates with the keyboard and compare
it with the way we think when we write with our hand. I always felt the
difference when I write directly on my mobile phone or my laptop as against
making notes on paper or notepad and transfer them on to the screen for further
expansion of my ideas. Though I’m unable to put this experience in words it’d
great to study this difference and understand how the medium of writing affects
our thought processes or vice versa.
Wondering what prompted this sudden concern
of handwriting in me? Well, I do think back and feel sad about how much my
handwriting has suffered with lack of practice, how illegible and unpresentable
it looks. But, yesterday, when I had to make some
quick notes from a book, instead of writing down the points or even keying them
I ended up taking a picture of the paragraph on my mobile phone as I was in a
hurry. Resorting to such quick and easy way of doing things makes me
apprehensive about how digital technologies and handheld devices pose a threat
to our creative skills, handwriting included.
Perhaps, this trend is inevitable as one
treads through various stages of evolution with writing as a form of
communication and handwriting as a form of creative expression!
