• June 27, 2012  |  3:43 AM MDT

Power of the Pen

If the Continental Congress were convening today, would anyone be able to read the Declaration of Independence that Thomas Jefferson laboriously wrote by hand? Would members of that Congress affix their actual “John Hancock’s” to the document or rely on electronic signatures instead?

Who knows! However, it is clear that the number of adults who hand write anything is quickly diminishing, and now we know by just how much.

Last week, the on-line stationer Docmail released the results of some recently commissioned research. According to that research, on average, a typical adult will not hand write anything—not a note, calendar entry, or photo inscription—over a six-week period. One in three of the 2000 respondents indicated they hadn’t written anything “properly” for more than six months. And more than 50 percent of those polled admitted their handwriting has noticeably declined, with one in seven indicating they were “ashamed” of their written word.

These are statistics we can change now, folks!!!  Don’t delay. Today, take up a pen and dash off a note to someone who has done something nice for you. With the least little bit of effort, we can preserve an art form.