The verdict is in…again?
it takes a lot more brainpower, as well as cross-talk between brain areas, to write than type.
That’s a good thing for our brains. Not so much for the edtech industry which counts on selling devices to schools.
My Notes
Writing by hand…improves memory and recall of words, laying down the foundations of literacy and learning. In adults, taking notes by hand during a lecture, instead of typing, can lead to better conceptual understanding of material.
“Handwriting is probably among the most complex motor skills that the brain is capable of,” says Marieke Longcamp, a cognitive neuroscientist at Aix-Marseille Université.
Gripping a pen nimbly enough to write is a complicated task, as it requires your brain to continuously monitor the pressure that each finger exerts on the pen. Then, your motor system has to delicately modify that pressure to re-create each letter of the words in your head on the page. The relative slowness of the medium forces you to process the information, writing key words or phrases and using drawing or arrows to work through ideas, she says. “You make the information your own…” via National Public Radio
My Anecdote
As I type this on my iPhone, I wish I was instead writing all this out. Chances are, I will forget this all since I did not write it out by hand.
Since I went back to taking notes by hand on everything, I have noticed improvements in memory and recall of ideas I write down. This has been helpful at work but also in conversations.
The problem? It takes so long. Ah, well.