Australia: pen no less mighty than keyboard in computer age
- From: "Kate Gladstone" <handwritingrepair@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Barbara Getty" <ellyfont@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "Dubay Inga" <idubay@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, "Ann Alaia Woods" <aimiaart@xxxxxxxxx>, "Nan Jay Barchowsky" <njbarch@xxxxxxx>, handryting@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, nickthenibs <nickthenibs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "Marie Picon" <editor@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, "Arthur R. Maier" <amaier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "tommyray39@xxxxxxxx" <tommyray39@xxxxxxxx>, "Thomas Hutson" <Thomas_Hutson@xxxxxxxxxxx>, "lesliefish@xxxxxxx" <lesliefish@xxxxxxx>, 4PENS@xxxxxxxx, "zoss pens" <pens@xxxxxxxx>, fptalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 24 May 2006 13:10:50 -0400
You may enjoy this - especially the part answering a firm "No" to
whether the keyboard has extinguished handwriting.
(I noted with interest the mention of "semi-printed" writing as the
emerging norm ... )
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Echo boomers - the first digital citizens
Wednesday, 24 May 2006
Reporter: Louise Ray and Deborah Banks
[photo of pens and keyboard]
Is it possible that the pen is mightier than the keyboard, even for
the world's first digital generation, the Echo Boomers?
These days, it seems every generation has to have a catchy name. Baby
boomers, Gen X, and now Generation Y, also known as the Echo Boomers -
children (thus echoes) of the Baby Boomers.
US social researchers identified the Echo Boomers as the world's first
true digital citizens. Aged from 11 to 27, they're the first
generation to grow up in the digital age and marketing expert Sonny
Waheed says the typical Echo Boomer is defined by 'the access to a
connected world'.
"They don't know life without being in contact with somebody else, be
it through the internet, mobile phone, SMS messaging, paging, that
sort of thing," he says.
"They're very, very much part of a virtual world. The idea of personal
interaction is a secondary thing for them. Connectivity through the
spoken word, and much more so through email, instant messaging,
SMSing, the written word, is a paramount element of their
communication."
That might mean that Echo Boomers are the harbingers of a new set of
communication problems and solutions. Those nonverbal clues in
communication - body language and tone of voice - are missing from
emails and text messages, meaning it's possible for messages to be
misread. Something that, face to face, would be obviously a joke may
not be funny in text, so the solution is to use emoticons to add those
'inflections' to emails or text messages.
For all the text communication, handwritten letters are not as
popular; for Echo Boomers, the sound of the computer signalling the
arrival of a new email has replaced the sound of the postie calling.
"The one advantage of the 'bing' of the email is, you'll get it
throughout the day," Sonny says.
"You're not dependent on the postman arriving once or twice during the
day. You have that sense of connection and communication with your
peers, your friends, your colleagues, anybody else you're in
communication with throughout your waking hours."
But does decent handwriting go out the window in favour of fast
keyboard work? Not immediately, Sonny believes.
"There are reports that I've read which suggest that the only thing
that a human being will need to do for the medium future is write
their signature, because everything else will be digitised - and there
may come a point where even signatures are replaced by fingerprints or
retina scans, those sort of things, in which case writing may not be
required as a physical art.
"I don't see any time with the Echo Boomer generation, in their
lifetime, where handwriting will be obsolete, and I don't think in the
generation following that, it'll be obsolete. But there is the
potential that it can be marginalised in society. At the moment, we
don't actually have the technology to take down stuff that we want to
note down effectively when we're on the move.
"So, if you're at your desk at work or at home and you've got a
computer, then the keyboard is actually a natural secondary way of
writing things down or noting things down. But when you're on the
move, using a keypad from a telephone or a smaller keyboard, it
becomes very difficult.
"To overcome that, they're putting a lot of effort and energy into
handwriting technology so that computers and devices can recognise
someone's handwriting...it's getting better and better, moreso where
you use a semi-printed rather than cursive style."
Leonie Murphy is a local writer who works with kids in the Echo Boomer
age range, and she says they're adaptable rather than fixated on
computers.
"The kids that I see around Sunraysia and in other workshops that I
attend in the state are really adaptable. They'll use either; they're
quite happy to use pen and paper, and they're quite happy to use the
computer," she says - perhaps being happy with either is the new
version of being bilingual!
"Schools are doing a great job of making kids adaptable...what the
schools are doing now is probably what will keep on happening to keep
both styles of communication happening.
"When we have writing workshops, we'll have anything from 30 to 70
kids in the room...and most of those kids are quite happy with pen and
paper, yet they'll go home and hop on [their computers] to write a
story as well.
"Schools are doing the same thing. My daughter, who's in grade five,
came home the other day with an assignment to work on the hairy nosed
wombat, and to my surprise, she was asked to create it in Powerpoint,
which I thought was great, because she was using that as another idea,
rather than the old cut-and-paste and sticking pictures on a piece of
cardboard, that I used to do."
Leonie says that many kids do still love getting mail from the postie
- but not all.
"I think it depends on the people that they're with...my father in law
is 92, and he still regularly handwrites and gets handwritten letters
from his 22 year old granddaughter."
So maybe the post office will get to handle more than bills into the
future after all!
Curious about some of those smilies that add extra emotional content
to emails and texts? Here are a few with their 'translations':
:) means 'happy'
:,) means 'so happy I'm crying'
:))))))) means 'ecstatically happy'
:-/ means 'sceptical or undecided'
;) means 'winking'
;) is a devilish winking smilie
|-I means 'asleep'
:-o means 'surprised'
=(8-0) means the writer is having a hair-raising experience
:-& means the writer is tongue-tied
:-X means the writer has been sworn to secrecy; their lips are sealed
8-) means the writer is a) happy and b) wearing glasses
There are even smilies for pets and animals:
<:3 )~~~ is a mouse (a computer mouse, perhaps)
=^..^= is a cat (the =s are whiskers, the ^s are ears, the .. is its eyes)
8^ is a smilie chicken
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Yours for better letters, Kate Gladstone -
handwritingrepair@xxxxxxxxx - telephone 518/482-6763
Handwriting Repair and the World Handwriting Contest
http://learn.to/handwrite, http://www.global2000.net/handwritingrepair
325 South Manning Boulevard
Albany, New York 12208-1731 USA
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