08 October 2012

Philip Hensher: Why handwriting matters | Books | The Observer

Philip Hensher: Why handwriting matters | Books | The Observer:
"Those other writing apparatuses, mobile phones, occupy a little bit more of the same psychological space as the pen. Ten years ago, people kept their mobile phone in their pockets. Now, they hold them permanently in their hand like a small angry animal, gazing crossly into our faces, in apparent need of constant placation. Clearly, people do regard their mobile phones as, in some degree, an extension of themselves. And yet we have not evolved any of those small, pleasurable pieces of behaviour towards them that seem so ordinary in the case of our pens. If you saw someone sucking one while they thought of the next phrase to text, you would think them dangerously insane."
'via Blog this'

I still think my handwriting is important, even if I do it rarely. The computer is so much more the tool used to create messages--emails--and to create lecture notes or other documents. Writing with a pen is so much more time-consuming--it is too slow for the pace os life, for the demands of information production or communication that press on us today. But, I still do write with pens and pencils although my handwriting has become worse--less legible, less personal--from lack of practice. I make plans, clean my fountain pen, buy ink, but I always put off until tomorrow the time when I will fill the pen and use it again. I know that the time of using fountain pens has gone, and I cannot imagine ever using a fountain pen again as I did in my twenties--every day, for hours on end.

09 February 2012


Something similar has happened to the Internet. Transcending its original playful identity, it’s no longer a place for strolling — it’s a place for getting things done. Hardly anyone “surfs” the Web anymore. The popularity of the “app paradigm,” whereby dedicated mobile and tablet applications help us accomplish what we want without ever opening the browser or visiting the rest of the Internet, has made cyberflânerie less likely. That so much of today’s online activity revolves around shopping — for virtual presents, for virtual pets, for virtual presents for virtual pets — hasn’t helped either. Strolling through Groupon isn’t as much fun as strolling through an arcade, online or off.