[toyg]

Your oldies are better at reading cursive because cursive used to be read and written much more than it is today. It was the fastest way to write, and people had to use it a lot.

Typewriters first and computers later removed a massive amount of handwriting. Schools in some countries reacted by dropping cursive altogether, probably because they thought the effort to learn it was not worth it anymore.

[devilbunny]

Also, thick-inked ballpoint pens greatly increase the amount of pressure required to write. Cursive is faster if you use a fountain pen or a quill, but disjointed writing is faster with a regular Bic. If you've never tried one, a rollerball pen like the Pilot Precise V5 (regular or retractable) is much easier to write with because it uses fountain-pen-like ink.

[taeric]

I've taken a dive into the world of shorthand. Another thing near killed by computers. Surprisingly fun to get into, though. (The ridiculous sexism in many of the books is cringe inducing...)

[myu701]

I learned just the letter-forms (no shortcut / brief forms) from Teeline Fast, really helped me when taking sermon notes or wanting to write in my journals with a bit of obfuscation.

[th0ma5]

I had heard it was mostly to reduce ink blotting?

[pvarangot]

It helps with that if done right, but you can also reduce ink blotting in block if you learn the right strokes. I've seen a lot of people write block with a cursive a for example, and I think that reduces blot.