Is handwriting worth saving? Probably not, since is is simply "not the clearest way to communicate if expressing what you mean swiftly, and being understood, is your primary purpose." But we will be poorer for the loss:
Which means the only case for handwriting, at this point, is the nostalgic one—and it is not without merit. There remains something wonderful about receiving a letter that has been physically touched—actually crafted—by the hands of your correspondent. Perhaps the same people who sell handmade whatsits on Etsy as crocheted rebukes to the digital age will soon take up calligraphy en masse—and more power to them. I will certainly keep sending hand-written notes from time to time. But let’s face it: Cultivating fine handwriting is now an indulgence, a hobby for the aesthetically minded, like knitting, or decoupage. Our children must learn to write in school—but they probably don’t need to write that well.
We will be (and should be) judged mostly by what we have to say in our written language, not how we actually get the words down. But there's a lot to be said for caring about more than the utilitarian.
