Humans Are Losing This Unique Skill They Acquired 5,500 Years Ago, Scientists Warn

The human race has always endeavoured to learn and progress. But has it arrived at a stage when all the gains of the past will be lost to a luxury newly discovered?

Representational image of a girl preparing to write something on a notepad.

Source : Getty Images

Ask any person born between the late 1990s and early 2010s for a pen and notepad, and they will remind you that it is the digital era, when no one wants to write by putting pen to paper anymore. One does not see this generation striving to master a neat or calligraphic hand or labouring to create handwritten greeting cards or posters. 

Everything has become digitally facilitated — writing (typing or keying in), drawing (forget the old traditional hand-drawn method where every frame was drawn by hand), or even creating music.

Fine, digital innovation is good as it has helped mankind send probes to Mars and beyond. But it is also leading to the Generation Z likely losing proficiency in a skill that was once considered integral to personal expression and communication. 

The skill we are talking about here is: handwriting.

Losing An Ancient Skill To Technology 

Findings published by a team of researchers from the University of Stavanger in Norway after an intensive study show that nearly 4 out of every ten persons of this generation are showing a decline in their ability to communicate through writing — and the culprit is their constant interaction with smartphones, computers, and other digital gadgets.

Another research published in the Frontiers that used a high-density EEG study shows that using the hand to write and not type is what leads to widespread brain connectivity. 

The researchers conclude that handwriting requires fine motor control over the fingers, and it forces students to pay attention to what they are doing. Typing, on the other hand, requires mechanical and repetitive movements that trade awareness for speed. "Our results reveal that whenever handwriting movements are included as a learning strategy, more of the brain gets stimulated, resulting in the formation of more complex neural network connectivity. It appears that the movements related to typewriting do not activate these connectivity networks the same way that handwriting does."

Another study – again from the University of Stavanger in Norway — found that handwritten notes improve memory retention compared to typed notes. The study was conducted by researchers Anne Mangen and Jean-Luc Velay at the university's National Centre for Reading Education and Research. It concludes, "... our findings indicate that there may be certain cognitive benefits to handwriting which may not be fully retained in keyboard writing."

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The History Of Writing

Nearly 30,000 years ago, when writing hadn’t been invented, our human ancestors living in the caves couldn’t chalk their names on the rock. Some left silhouettes of their palms on the cave walls formed after pigment dust was blown over it.

Evidence suggests that writing was invented in southern Iraq sometime before 3000 BC. The place was Mesopotamia and the language is now nearly perished Sumerian. 

In his new book, "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind", anthropologist and author Yuval Noah Harari cites a find from nearly 33 centuries before Christ to a 5,000-year-old clay tablet found in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). It has dots, brackets, and little drawings carved on it and appears to record a business deal.

It’s a receipt for multiple shipments of barley. The tablet says, very simply: "29,086 measures barley 37 months Kushim".

Harari explains the most probable reading of this sentence as "A total of 29,086 measures of barley were received over the course of 37 months. Signed, Kushim". 

Since then, from Uruk (modern day Warka, Iraq) in the 4th millennium BC to the present day — humans have come a long way. And are about to lose it all.

In his book, "How Writing Made Us Human", Walter Stephens explains how writing has played an important role in shaping and structuring most human societies. But Walter Stephen's concern is historical rather than anthropological. The title of his book too is inspired by the role that learning to read and write played in the emancipation of enslaved people in 19th-century North America.

Without having mastered writing skills our species would have simply had no roadmap to reach where it is today. But now we are bracing for Generation Z to be the first cohort functionally incapable of handwriting. 

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Why Writing Is An Essential Skill

Handwriting plays a crucial role in cognitive development by enhancing memory and word comprehension, engaging the brain differently than typing does.

Digital technology has transformed direct communication methods. So the first casualty is working on your handwriting. Who wants to write by hand when you have instant messages, abbreviations, and screen-based interactions?

Mankind has survived, evolved and come this far due to its evolving communication abilities. It is well understood that writing by hand engages the brain in ways that typing does not, enhancing memory retention, creativity, and cognitive development. 

Writing with a pen or pencil put on a medium such as paper or any compatible surface fosters a personal connection to ideas, allowing for greater introspection and emotional expression.

Compare that to digital communication, which can be pretty impersonal.

Start With Yourself, Value A Pen

When was the last time you scribbled a note? Your smartphone and laptop have ensured that you do not have address books or diaries that you log in using a pen or pencil. The keypad, the stylus, the mouse, and the touch screen have simply edged out the inky pen out of your lives.

As digital devices are increasingly replacing traditional writing by hand, health experts and anthropologists are sounding the alarm on the decline of writing by hand, highlighting why it is crucial to examine the long-term implications of this practice.

The author is a senior independent journalist.