Mahdis Habibinia | Executive Editor, Online
Featured image courtesy of Pixabay
Today is the unofficial holiday dedicated to the art and science of handwriting. Although I am an advocate of using a laptop for school work, and texting or emailing what I have to say, I believe handwriting is a forgotten science, and lost art.
Most of us go into classrooms with our laptops because it is easier and faster to take down the 100-words-a-minute lecture by a professor who addresses a multitude of concepts in just one PowerPoint slide.
I, myself, am a slow writer, so by the time I have finished jotting down the first point, the professor has usually moved on to the third. Having missed a good chunk of the information in between, I endure the next slide in anxiety. Rinse and repeat.
Essentially, typing out our notes has become a huge time-saver for us because it allows us to actually get down all of the important points the professor is teaching.
However, studies have shown that writing your notes by hand helps you remember the material you are reading. These findings indicated students who wrote their notes by hand scored significantly higher than students using laptops, including ‘fleet typists’ who took down more information.
Although it is more effective to type out your initial notes, as students, we are certainly going to take advantage of the age of technology. So consider studying for your next exam by writing out that same typed material in point-form later.
Handwriting isn’t only a forgotten science, but also a lost art.
Writing out letters and mailing them is an archaic idea to us today. Thanks to the smartphone, and a virtual keyboard, you can say just about anything you damn-well please in both volume and relevance, excess or scarcity. ‘Love letters’ are now long, blue (or green) blobs on a screen, sometimes containing more emojis than words; wishing someone a Merry Christmas is now a five-dollar Shoppers Drug Mart card; and wishing someone a happy birthday can now be both.
With letters, you only have space for the important things you want to communicate. Words are not wasted, and in fact, are chosen carefully, considering the time and effort it takes.
Plus, it would take some work, since you have to write, edit, and polish. It’s an art, especially if you want to do calligraphy. Then days (or even weeks) go by before the other person receives it, so there’s some thought that goes into planning the whole process— this sounds tedious in the 21st century, but there’s at least a genuine sentiment attached to the written word, and communication between two individuals.
I’m not saying you should mail your friend a letter written with a fifty-dollar fountain pen on Monday to ask them if they want to go out on Friday. But consider sending a good friend, or even your paramour, a handwritten letter for their next birthday, for example. It will likely mean more to them than your common “HBD” text at midnight following a Facebook reminder.
