If keyboards and smartphones have undoubtedly won the writing war, our good old pens and pencils still have invaluable virtues for memory and learning.
Computer tools offer undeniable advantages in terms of writing speed. We have never written as much as in our era dominated by computers and smartphones. Mechanical keyboards and touch screens are so convenient that most adults no longer pick up a pen during a workday, some schools no longer teach handwriting to students, and many others are gradually replacing notebooks with tablets.
However, people’s ability to memorize and concentrate seems to be declining year after year, and several clues suggest that the invasion of screens and keyboards is not unrelated to the phenomenon. Several very serious studies thus highlight the links that unite handwriting with long-term memorization, sustained attention and deep learning. Three areas in which keyboards, as effective as they are, are less efficient than pens and pencils.
First of all, writing by hand is a demanding and complex psychomotor action, which simultaneously uses several areas of the brain much more than typing on a keyboard. This activity involves hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, memory and thinking. By mobilizing a more extensive neural network, handwriting promotes deep fixation and long-term memorization of information. In a recent articlethe magazine National Geographic also echoes research highlighting these cognitive mechanisms.
These brain imaging studies reveal how different areas of the brain activate, communicate and “synchronize” during the handwriting process. Tracing letters requires exerting fine pressure on the paper, following the formation of the curves with your gaze and comparing the result in real time with the image of the characters stored in your memory. An intense muscular and cognitive coordination exercise, which stimulates the activity of neural pathways. And while keyboard typing also involves the hands, the in-game movements are much simpler and definitely don’t activate the brain in the same way.
Additionally, because handwriting is slower and more demanding than typing, it requires increased concentration and sustained attention over a longer period of time. Paradoxically, slowing down the writing process therefore promotes a deeper assimilation of information, ideas and concepts, as pointed out the NPR associative network. Thus, both schoolchildren for learning their lessons and adults for taking notes in meetings, would benefit from returning to paper and pencil.
However, it is not necessary to reject digital tools altogether. The various studies carried out show that the mental benefits of handwriting are the same, whether you trace the letters on a sheet of paper with a pen, or on a screen with a stylus. It is therefore possible to benefit from the best of both worlds, thanks to devices like electronic ink tablets, which allow you to read thousands of books and take notes, write texts or draw by hand. A good way to take advantage of the advantages of digital technology, without depriving yourself of the formidable cognitive virtues of handwriting.