From Stone to Stylus: The Evolution of Handwriting, Its Role in building Civilizations, and Its Relevance in the Era of Artificial Intelligence

“ The invention of writing and of a convenient system of records on paper has had a greater influence in uplifting the human race than any other intellectual achievement in the career of man. It was more important than all the battles ever fought and all the constitutions ever devised.” - James Henry Breasted. The Conquest of Civilization.

The recent viral handwriting of Nepali girl that caught the attention of the entire world, once again raised the debate of the relevance of handwriting in the era of artificial intelligence. There is divided opinion among educationists, scientists, and psychologists regarding the impact of the usage of pen and paper to write on the learning and cognitive abilities of the children, compared to typing or using touch pads to write.  

The invention of handwriting played a crucial role in the emergence of the greatest civilizations in the world. The advent of writing revolutionized communication by enabling the preservation of spoken language in a tangible form. This breakthrough facilitated the storage and dissemination of information across vast distances and timeframes. Consequently, individuals could document their thoughts and messages for future generations, and written communication such as letters, instructions, and treaties could be transmitted across great distances. As the world's first true information technology, writing transformed society.

Handwriting is considered a skill and the way to express individuals feelings and thoughts in a more organized manner. Writing, inextricably linked to time, is an innate, biological, and cultural imperative that necessitates reflection and contemplation. It transcends mere communication, serving as a conduit for knowledge acquisition, self-understanding, and the creative and fulfilling act of self-expression. As an essential component of teaching and learning and a public good, educational institutions must critically evaluate their role in fostering early writing development.

Given the contemporary threat of digitalization to traditional handwriting, the judicious integration of both writing modalities in education is paramount, ensuring neither overshadows nor supplants the other.

Writing as an art form

The writing was used even as a decorative motif on the pots and seals in many civilizations. Most of the early writing was a mix of alphabets and symbols (pictographic); the script used by Indus Valley Civilization, is yet be deciphered, and the archaeologists are trying to use artificial intelligence to understand the writings of those people, which might change the understanding of human past in a different manner.

For ages, writing in the form of calligraphy has been used as an art form in paintings, personalized letters, and monuments and is considered one of the finest skills to learn. In the era of digital writing, calligraphy acts as nostalgic for many.

Writing as source of History

The historical period of any country starts with the availability of the written evidence. The writing styles have changed from writing on stones and palm leaves to pen and paper, and with the advent of printing and typing machines, expressing in the form of writing transcended the physical boundaries. The internet and digital writing made it an equalizing play field for every one to express themselves and communicate clearly without much skill or artistic handwriting skill.

Not just writing new text Artificial Intelligence is helping in bridging the gap of understanding the old scriptures due to the fading of writing and change in usage of terminology over generations.

Relevance of Handwriting in the era of Artificial Intelligence:

The recent remarks of Google CEO Sundar Pichai about the apprehensions of the generations towards adopting new technology generation worries that the new technology will change the lives of the next generation for the worse — and yet, it’s almost always the opposite”, how the current generation should deal with the AI natives, and how they will do the things with full use of technology.

There are various studies about how writing with a hand activates the brain and improves attention span in schoolchildren and cognitive abilities. However, there are no clear studies about the cognitive abilities in adults while writing with hand; there is also a lack of clear data about the memory, working of the brain, and brain activity in the tribes not having writing or script and depend on oral communication over generations even in today’s world.

There is also a lack of comparative study about animals and human brain activity and cognitive abilities in terms of observation skills, retaining of memory, and communication within their group. Though numerous studies have been conducted in the recent past and current studies are more focused on the handwriting relevance in school curriculum, and selected set of age groups.

The recent studies worry about loss of writing skills and reading other people's handwriting skills, coining the term “Pen-demic” the loss of skill to write legibly with traditional pen and paper. Historically humans moved from chiseling with stone on stone to writing with pencil and pens on paper. Present generations can not read or comprehend the ancient inscriptions written on rocks and other material, as the form of alphabets changed over decades. Similar phenomena may be expected in future generations where people find it hard to read the handwriting of others.

The usage of digital writing, voice commands, and prompt-based writing may make handwriting irrelevant in academic writing, as the graduation-level thesis, Ph.D. thesis, and research articles publications are in the digital format.

Can AI kill craft, and Hand Writing becomes a craft?

Tech leaders like Sam Altman believe that with the rise of artificial intelligence, the handicrafts like pottery, carvings, handmade articles, and crafts become more premium and luxury than they were previously.

With the ChatGPT moment, DeepSeek moment, and Manus moment, the good hand writing for scoring high in exams at higher academic levels will be a thing of the past and the calligraphy style and cursive writing will become a personal premium art form rather than the essential skill for academic growth.

Conclusion

There needs to be more scientific studies on various age groups and comparative studies among the abilities of humans with writing skills and humans without writing skills. The studies also distinguish between the cognitive abilities of the generations that just lived with oral communication and those of generations having skills of writing with hand.

There needs to be advanced studies on the brain activity of AI native generations that grow up with more skills in digital writing than handwriting in the traditional manner. To understand the relevance of handwriting as a major aspect of curriculum and future course of action.