Weakened handwriting strengthens the link between oral and textual cultures I suspect. IMing is practically oral. Email is almost as oral. Handwriting was most used for letter/memo writing, which strongly textualized originally oral relationships due to the slow asynchronicity.

Typing also improves writing for some people. I became a far better writer when I learned to type. My old writings from my pre-typing teen years embarrass me now, and it's more than can be explained by my youth. I think typing triggers perfectionist instincts, since the physical words are so much neater and more polished.

These days I only hand write brainstorming notes where there is more visual structure like diagrams/sketches. And increasingly I use my iPad and stylus rather than paper.

I suppose this is because I never had that tactile love affair with the mechanical act of writing that many people do. That in turn was because my natural handwriting sucks. Which in turn is because I think 3x faster than I write and 1.5x faster than I type.

Calligraphy has never attracted me. But drawing does. I draw a lot on my iPad with a stylus these days, and I find I like it more than pencil and paper, modulo early quality problems.

But the stylus is probably going to trigger a handwriting revival once the quality improves. The Jot stylus is pretty great.