If the situation was bad already a decade ago, it is far more grave now that short text messaging is so wildly popular. Lee's article entitled 'In China, Computer Use Erodes Traditional Handwriting, Stirring a Cultural Debate' in the Technology section of the New York Times for February 1, 2001. Pessimists and alarmists have long been lamenting the negative impact of computers upon the ability of Chinese to write characters by hand.
