The extinction of Handwriting?

Handwriting has had its say in the evolution and development of civilization of the human race. The evolution of writing, traces its history to about 5,500 years ago in Mesopotamia which is in present day Iraq.

In Nigeria, having a fine handwriting fetches you extra marks for clarity. As a young pupil those days in primary school, one is taught how to write with the use of a writing book and a pencil for starters and eventually with a pen as you approach primary four. The act of writing is not perfected in one day but involves continuous practice.

To describe any writing on a paper as a handwriting, it ought to have been done by a person using the fingers to express a point with a pencil, pen or a quill (as in the early days of writing). Overtime people developed different styles and techniques of handwritings in order to pass messages and information.

Writing of letters to loved ones, friends and acquaintances used to be a thing before the era of the electronic mail and the cell phones. Everyone has a distinctive and unique style of writing which ranges from the shape of the letters,the pressure you apply with the pen on the paper, the boldness of the letters and also how the pen is held while writing.

There are 3 major styles of handwritings which include the Cursive, Print and the D’Nelian styles of handwriting. Each has its own distinctions. The “Cursive” handwriting is characterized by a running hand where the pen is seldom lifted with some characters (letters) written in a flowing manner and are joined together. It is encouraged because it makes writing faster. The “print” style of writing on the other hand, is a style whereby the characters are not conjoined but spaced like every letter on this article. Finally the “D' Nelian” style is a mixture of both the cursive and the print style of writing. As a millennial in Nigeria, going to a decent primary school involves a child to go through writing lessons with a writing book in other to improve and acquire writing skills. With cursive writing being emphasized on in the early 90s.

However in this digital age, the use of stationeries in writing is fast becoming redundant, with technologies replacing the use of paper and a pen. Organizations and companies in super developed countries, opt for a paperless world and also advocating for trees to be planted instead of being felled and used for the production of paper. This organizations and government are being more pro active on the quest to reduce global warming. Hence, the use of hands to write is slowly growing extinct in such organization and it is being replaced by computers and other gadgets to pass information easier and faster.

Electronic gadgets are gradually doing more in writing and thus slowly bringing an end to the use of the pen and paper in passing out information through writing. For instance, this article on handwritings is being typed on my phone.It seems in the nearest future knowing how to write with the hands might be seen as mundane and archaic. We might be seeing handwritten manuscripts in the museum. But is this the extinction of the handwriting age?