In this day and age, everything is computerized, digitized and technological. Our world has become so tech savvy, and with so many opportunites at the touch of a button,  it’s hard to stay on one tab.

All this technology is great for multi-tasking, that goes without saying. I can read an article online and take notes on the side without ever needing to look down or switch pencils. Hand-written notes? Please, that’s so ten minutes ago.

Technology isn’t just a  luxury or something that we use occasionally. We’ve moved from hand writing notes to typing them on a laptop. We’ve moved from copying the board to downloading an attachment in an email. Simple things like a handwritten letter are almost extinct.

I once debated with a friend the negative implications technology has for us and our world, more specifically, the fact that schools are thinking of taking cursive writing classes out of their curriculum and, instead, teaching keyboarding classes.

My first instinct was to defend the cursive class in favor of continuing the long and tortuous tradtion of writing in cursive.

My arguments were I remember taking cursive as a kid and even helping my younger sister with her cursive. I couldn’t imagine a world where people wouldn’t use pens and paper.

My friend’s argument was simply, “So what?”

The question threw me for a loop. So what, indeed. So what if the next generation of kids who pass through school don’t know how to write cursive? Are they really missing anything?

I haven’t used my cursive since the third grade, except to sign my name. Never. Granted though, I hated cursive and told my teacher that I was never going to write it after the class.

If technology keeps speeding full ahead, cursive is going to become like calligraphy, a writing “art,” an extinct style of writing. (I didn’t like calligraphy either…hmm…)

I guess all this proves is that I’m getting old. Kids aren’t going to be writing in cursive. People aren’t sending hand-written letters. What happened to the world? When did everything evolve and change so quickly? It seems like only a couple days ago I was asking for a stamp to send a letter to grandma, a letter that I had written in cursive–mind you.

Yes. I am old. It won’t be long before I’ll be starting off stories with the trademark phrase of grannys, “Back in my day….” Please, stop me if I do.

As American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan would say, “The times they are a-changin!”

Amen, Bob. Amen.