The concept of writing has always been associated with the physical act of writing or writing letters in pencil and creating a looping script for meaning. Writing as a physical process is all the world has ever known … until recently.

Halfway through the second decade of the new millennium, we no longer “put pen on paper.”

Writing has now become a mechanized application that forgoes a certain hand in favor of fluency at the fingertips, as words are created with one touch, in the style we choose, and in the size we select. Forget double line calligraphy paper, everything is even and perfectly flush.

So this is progress. Are we better? After all, each of us learned to write “by hand.” We were instructed to hold a pencil firmly between our thumb and forefinger. We learned to put advice on a page, to stay on the lines, and to make mistakes. We practice italics, proper slant, spacing, size, and page after page of capital “H”. We suffer the slings and arrows of writer’s blows, hot erasers, and torn pages.

There is something innate and raw about scribbling our thoughts in a notebook on a nightstand. No layout, no spell checker, no font selection. What could be more exciting than creating the symbols and ciphers of language? For generations, the human hand has been a linguistic chisel, words have always served as a tool for refining semantics, and the resulting communication has been the story of our lives.

Norbett Platt, former CEO of Montblanc said that “the act of putting pencil on paper prompts us to pause to think, this in turn makes us think more deeply about life, which helps us regain our balance.”

So are we less balanced now that we “key in” our most intimate reflections? Has the essence of writing changed throughout the process? It is true that neuroscientists are concerned about the loss of physical writing and an associated decline in reading, motor and memory skills. Writing something helps retention, as research suggests that physical writing is a more cognitive experience that becomes active and intellectual at the same time.

The psychiatrist Roland Jouvent also maintains that “With writing we get closer to the intimacy of the author.” The writer’s hand, like that of any other artist, elaborates the contours of the experience in a way that is perhaps more thoughtful and precise than an electronic application.

So have we lost the traditional writing process for something faceless and soulless? Have we emptied the exercise itself of all passion and desire? And are all those mocking emoticons just the modern way of trying to bring excitement back to a broken activity that is now devoid of all emotion and elegance?

Not everyone agrees. Joyce Carol Oates is quoted as saying that “Writing is a consequence of thinking, planning, dreaming; this is the process that results in ‘writing’, rather than the way writing is recorded.”

So maybe it’s just preferences. If spilling your heart on the back of a dinner napkin produces the same spontaneous “streak of passion” as someone playing a verse on a smartphone … so be it. But let’s not forget that the writer’s bump has been replaced by compressed nerves from the carpal tunnel wrist causing numbness of the entire hand and arm.