Educators, parents and handwriting enthusiasts say that computers are becoming so dominant that children do not see the need to learn how to write in cursive anymore. While schools in the US still teach it, kids rather communicate via e-mail or IM.

Many schools no longer teach proper cursive and are teaching "print cursive" instead. With print cursive, one prints letters that have small tails to connect words with. Some wonder when handwriting will be phased out completely.

Of kids aged 5 to 17, 90% of them use computers and most learn to type 20-30 words a minute when they get out of elementary school. Michael Sull, a graphic artist, says that kids no longer know how to hold pencils properly and have poor legibility.


http://www.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/06/08/cursive.keyboard.ap/index.html

Bah. I would agree, but I think this happened long before computers even. Its moreso the schools fault. Teachers cannot read kids cursive, so they tell them to either print (ya know what I mean) or else do it on a computer/typewriter/word processor.

Its just easier that way. I can't even write some of the cursive letters and alot of my friends are the same way.

I learned cursive in the third grade. After that, I stopped using it. I hate cursive, I think it is stupid looking and that print is better. I don't even sign my name in cursive, it's just a quicker version of printing it. I didn't get a computer until I was in the ninth grade.

I will never stop writing things by hand, but probably use it less and less as there is less of a need to. Everyone will know what it needs to look like when they write, because of fonts. But if they stopped teaching it then people would blow [censored] at writing. I do like the natural feel of handwriting, and the way it looks, alot more than "cold" computer text.

Since I'm a security guard and am required to print my reports, I'm out of the habit of writing cursive. I know how to write cursive though, although perhaps I've forgotten how to write some capital letters. I prefer to write my name in cursive though, slightly stylizing the first letter.

For sure though, my teacher doesn't even have to ask me. Anytime I have to turn in an assignment (even if it's only plotting down the letters to a multiple choice), I type it out on the computer. It's faster, cleaner, easier.

Efficient.

I learned cursive in like second grade or somethin. All my elementary school teachers required it after we learned it. Then as I got older, they often requested we do stuff in print. My handwriting is so bad in either one, that my teachers started askin me to type stuff up. When giving assignments, they'd tell us all to either write it or type it, then right before I left at the end of class, they'd tell me to type it. My handwriting was awful long before I used computers on a regular basis. Now... I never write anything.

Same here perg. My handwriting blows, and it blew way before I ever had a computer. Before like 2nd grade, I would take the whole class period just to write down a sentence. I had to make everything perfect. Now I just get assignments done as fast as I can. I can still remember how to write every letter in cursive though. The thing is, some letters in cursive just don't make sense. They look nothing like their printed counter-parts. For instance the capital 'I' in cursive is really stupid looking and doesen't even resemble a printed 'I.' I think that's probably part of the reason for the downfall of cursive.