Will Hand Writing be gone forever?

It was interesting to read a book review by Andrew Robinson on written scripts and its evolution from ancient times (1). As a teacher of science in a career spanning 2 decades and covering more than 4 diverse states of India I have observed the amount of handwritten answer scripts, lab journals etc are becoming less and less as typing on screen and keyboard is increasing more and more. In fact, I wonder how slowly human beings will cease to write with their hands. All the written admission tests and entrances earlier used to be pen and paper based. You had to visit exam centres and write the answers with your hands. Now most of the entrances and tests including international ones like GRE,TOEFL, SAT, GMAT, IELTS have become online with typing on keyboards or screen. India is scrapping handwritten tests by computerising its popular entrances like IIT JEE, NEET,CUET (2). During 2 years of covid lockdown I resorted to taking online exams, mostly MCQs for my students. Earlier in my generation we had to write lab journals and notebooks by hand. Nowadays my students write only observations, results and discussion of a lab notebook with their hands, everything is typewritten or copy pasted. Our offices, workplaces have resorted to online apps or word processing tools so that handwriting is required during signatures on documents only; other than that an adult is writing very less with their own hands. In my time, pens, pencils and stationeries were treasured, we had to write impeccably in reams to fetch good marks in exams. We put a lot of effort into choosing writing tools like ink pens, ball point pens, chiseled pencils etc. The pens used to be costly. Now, even with cheaper use and throw plastic pens available, the art of handwriting is scarce. Except in schools nobody writes with their hands any longer. In higher education and daily life writing by your hands is becoming less and less, which begs the question, Will we slowly stop writing by our hands?This has already been pointed out by the venerable BBC in 2017 (3). Smat phones, tabs and laptops are here to stay and there will be more online tools to increase typing on screen (4). As a seasoned academician I do feel sad to see the decline in handwriting and I see no change unless the teachers start forcing handwritten journals and exams for the students. References: 1.Andrew Robinson (2026) Technology is changing how we write — and how we think about writing. Nature 649, 1099-1101 (2026) doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-00245-0 2. Sanjay Sharma (2025) From-digital-to-paper-can-pen-and-paper-exams-end-ntas-test-turmoil-and-shape-the-future-of-jee-neet-and-cuet. Times of India. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/education/news/from-digital-to-paper-can-pen-and-paper-exams-end-ntas-test-turmoil-and-shape-the-future-of-jee-neet-and-cuet/articleshow/126032346.cms 3. Ewen Hosie(2017) The uncertain future of handwriting. BBC https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20171108-the-uncertain-future-of-handwriting 4. Chritine Rosen (2025) Signature moves: are we losing the ability to write by hand? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/jan/21/signature-moves-are-we-losing-the-ability-to-write-by-hand