I was a U.S. History minor in college. Back then there wasn't universal literacy like there is today and journals were part of the lifestyles of those days.
Also, I WAS thinking about the average, modern day Joe...but you knew that.
Do you really think that your average Joe, with wife, family, job, commute, relatives, bills, home and all that goes with that keeps a daily journal?
I DON'T.
I also don't think that American education cultivated the art/love of writing that other educational systems did. My schooling (private) didn't cultivate it either. It was just a personal love I had by seven years old.
Of course those first "journals" were NOT in cursive.
Do you keep a journal? I do and have been doing so since the second grade. That's when my mother said that I started.
I kept it through all my schooling, travels, jobs and mow retirement. I keep all the yearly journals in a nice file cabinet downstairs. I have always enjoyed writing.
... Back then there wasn't universal literacy like there is today and journals were part of the lifestyles of those days.
It isn't often one finds two big bloopers in one sentence in this forum.
The first settlements were established by well educated men grounded in their faith and well read. Read Gov Bradford's writing, Cotton Mather, and other's. Literacy was darn near universal, such that de Toqueville remarked on it at some length.
Today, our major cities public schools systems grind out semi-literate slugs that would be hard presses to follow a basic primer much less read or write a journal in cursive.
Not exactly sure of your meaning of life style with regard to our ancestors, but the keeping of journals was certainly critical to survival. They were the base records for that family in that location, noting agricultural, animal husbandry, family health, financial ledgers, planning aids, family history marking births, illnesses, weddings, deaths, and all the milestones between, and much more beside.
Quite a different piece from the preponderence of self absorbed navel gazing and the stuff of fan magazines one finds today.
Nice chatting but there's a dust bunny across the room that I really must talk to.