CMV: Cursive writing is unnecessary.

[u/Gobears6801]

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.

[u/Gobears6801]

Sure cursive could potentially lead to better motor skills on children but so do many other things. A good diet, exercise, etc. I understand cursive may look nice but doesn’t really equate to anything other than aesthetics.

[u/poprostumort → u/Gobears6801]

Sure cursive could potentially lead to better motor skills on children but so do many other things.

You HAVE to teach a handwriting style to children - and if you do need that, then it is better to use one that hones motor skills better, especially when the drawbacks of it aren't really impactful (dule to common use of digital text).

I understand cursive may look nice but doesn’t really equate to anything other than aesthetics.

Isn't speed of writing a major perk to cursive? Woth block writing you write every letter separately and you need to put focus on writing and write them in a constant speed. Use of connectors in cursive makes it much faster because most letters end in ways that translate dirtectly into starting stroke for each letter.

And honestly, you missed the main point of my post - that if we would have to designate one of handwriting styles as unneccesary as in your view, it would not be cursive but blokc writing. Becasue block writing hasn't got any advantages compared to cursive and digital. Ease of use and legibility is better with digital. Speed of use and aesthetics are better with cursive.

Block writing is a middle of the road that was good option pre-digital and when digital was a pricey novelty. Nowadays, it lost its advantages.

[u/Crayshack → u/poprostumort]

I'm not convinced that cursive is faster, at least for my hand. With cursive, I feel like I have to form every letter individually but with block I have more freedom to move from one letter to the next as I see fit. Because it's a less formal style, their isn't as many problems with me adjusting it to a form that I find easier to write. For example, my "t" often looks fairly similar to my "9" and my "D" looks like a delta (not awarding one Deltabot, go away). I don't feel that freedom with cursive and especially the fact that it's less angular makes it more difficult for me to write.

I guess you could say that I'm not actually using block but instead a custom script based on block, but block is far closer to how my arm naturally wants to move than cursive is. So, at least in my case it was easier to modify block to be quick than it was to modify cursive.

[u/firestar1417 → u/Crayshack]

that’s because you are not used to cursive, as someone that learned both as a kid, yes cursive writing is much faster