Some European countries are now considering proposals to cut cursive handwriting from public-school curricula. A millennia-old cultural technology is fated to vanish; citizens of the future will write using only computer keyboards and screens. Handwriting (at its most fundamental, the marking of a roughened or absorbent ground) and the fine motor skills it requires are being replaced by swiping, dragging, clicking, and tapping—gestures that encounter no physical resistance, and which register on a smooth luminescent surface.

These developments and their repercussions are the subject of