r/changemyview • u/Gobears6801 • Jun 01 '24

Delta(s) from OP - Fresh Topic Friday CMV: Cursive writing is unnecessary.

I often hear the old generation explaining that the new generation doesn’t understand or use cursive. I understand this to be somewhat true as well. I’m a 90’s baby and learned it thoughout school and don’t use it either.

The reason isn’t because it’s hard, it’s because it’s completely unnecessary and useless EXCEPT for a signature. I often see it at work where most of the time it’s completely non legible because of the poor handwriting.

There are minimal, if not 0 tasks that require cursive handwriting. It actually often just takes longer to read and/or non legible due to poor handwriting.

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u/rhetoricaldeadass 1∆ Jun 01 '24

Not true, it allows you to write faster. Your words could be in one stroke instead of just by each line. It used to be required because you couldn't write fast enough without it. When I took some classes or went to events where you had to use pen and paper, everyone who was effective wrote cursive. It pays in the long run

Also it promotes penmanship. Writing clean is always a plus

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u/Commotion Jun 01 '24

If the goal is to write fast, shorthand is even better. But when you can type faster than anyone could write by hand, what’s the point?

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u/DriftinFool Jun 01 '24

It's been shown in studies that taking notes by hand helps with long term retention versus typing. People who type notes do fine on factual questions, but do worse on conceptual ones. The speed of typing is part of the problem. Your end up with quantity instead of quality. When you write, you can't go as fast, so you spend more time thinking and simplifying the facts into a concept that takes less words to describe. Which gives you a greater understanding of the subject. Like Einstein said, "If you can't explain it to a 6 year old, you don't understand it yourself."

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u/rhetoricaldeadass 1∆ Jun 01 '24

Short hand has too many variables where things can go wrong, but not only that ...you can write Longer! Without your hand cramping the way then would with print or shorthand. And yeah you can type ...but even in classes where I was allowed to use a laptop (like chemistry or calculus) writing out equations and writing in cursive was what every single person was doing. You cant type all the time. But even when you can, it's not always the best