I'm a huge fan of N.S. and what he says might be true, but I have an aversion to writing by hand after being tortured while growing up in the late 80s.

I just couldn't seem to hold a pen or pencil the right way and would always fall behind following along with the rest of the class. I was forced to spend hours at home with worksheets tracing over letters. I was led to believe that if I couldn't write properly I would be a complete failure.

It turns out being able to use a computer and type quickly was a more useful skill.

Surprised honestly we haven't had similar claims for typing on keyboard versus typing on screens or dictation.

Out of all the things I’d consider to help me improve or be more productive, this has to be at the bottom. I actually used to write notes all throughout college, mostly because I couldn’t afford a laptop and would use the school desktop computers when actually writing code. But, I don’t see any degradation from moving to a workflow where I never physically write anymore.

I also don’t understand his stance on using cursive. Everyone that writes quickly develops their own scribble, which they can easily read and doesn’t involve taking the pen off the paper. What’s the point in relearning proper cursive?

Do crosswords count?

I wrote almost my entire PhD thesis by hand, with a pencil. When I made mistakes I erased them. My handwritten notebooks contain close to the final version of each chapter (there were, of course, some further corrections after typesetting).

I don't like writing in pen. I like being able to erase stuff. Having scribbled out bits looks messy and gets on my nerves.

Whatever implement you choose, I do concur with the author that writing by hand is good for you.

I don't write much these days, but I do fill pages full of notes, mostly diagrams and other pictures. I don't understand how some people with jobs similar to mine don't use paper at all.

As another fountain pen aficionado, it's reassuring to see that Neal's handwriting is as bad as mine.

I mean, I love writing with fountain pen and I do it every day, but I have _read_ Anathem.

Very little young people are writing by hand nowadays :( Mostly vaping xd

More like old habits go hard - heh