Handwriting - A Relic of the Past?
Written by Akshay Chavan on #arccoder Blog
03 Mar 2016A few days ago I listened to the Freakonomics podcast “Who Needs Handwriting?” It talked about how people are increasingly using different methods to write other than writing by hand using simple pen and paper. Typing or audio recording an activity on a to-do list are the most widely used methods to take notes. That’s a fair argument considering many of us, including me, type faster than we actually write by hand using a pen and paper.
Another debatable issue discussed was cursive handwriting. Whether it should be mandatory for school children to learn and write cursive and whether cursive writing should be a measure of their ability? Interestingly, I was brought up learning to write cursive but unfortunately now I don’t. I am not sure when I stopped writing cursive. Today my handwriting is a blend of cursive and print.
A lady described her experience about how she got a lot more from a lecture just because she took notes by hand as she forgot to bring her laptop to the class. This reminded me that I used to take notes during my school days in my notebook (writing by hand with pen) and not on a computer where there are a lot of distractions. The hand written notes always proved to be very useful while revising before exams. This led to some reflection on how much my writing by hand has declined over the years. To-do list, grocery list, notes taken in a meeting and almost everything else is typed on phone or computer, except checks that need to be handwritten and signed. Now a days the speech-to-text capability on most of the smart phones have also contributed to this trend. In fact, people don’t even type now because of this. By the way I used speech-to-text feature to note the outline for this blog. Adding items to a list, setting alarms or reminders or sending that text message can easily be accomplished even without typing.
After listening to the podcast and reflecting on my waning writing skill, I decided to take up handwriting again. Not to abandon typing but in order to maintain my handwriting skills. So I hand write the things that will be only read by me and where I don’t have to put someone through the task of reading my illegible handwriting. This change already seems to be working as highlighted in the podcast. According to psychology, there is a connection between writing by hand and the brain. For example, Stanislas Dehaene, a psychologist at the Collège de France in Paris said, “When we write, a unique neural circuit is automatically activated….There is a core recognition of the gesture in the written word, a sort of recognition by mental simulation in your brain…And it seems that this circuit is contributing in unique ways we didn’t realize…Learning is made easier.” I believe this is why I can remember most of the items on a handwritten grocery list than a typed one.
Another psychologist, Virginia Berninger, at the University of Washington, exhibited that printing, cursive writing, and typing on a keyboard are all related with different brain patterns and thereby result in different end results. When the children wrote text by hand, they not only consistently produced more words faster than they did on a keyboard, but also articulated more ideas.
I think hand writing an article or a letter clarifies and streamlines your thoughts before jotting them down on the paper. While typing we have the liberty of just deleting the words typed and starting afresh each time. On paper you would have to scratch off or erase the words you wrote and even if you did not write sentences in a desired order you will end up scrapping the paper and invest more time to rewrite it all. There is no drag and drop to rearrange the sentences and still make the draft look clean. On the second attempt you might end up modifying a few things or writing it differently which may be even better than what you wrote before and thus accomplish more from the letter or the article you are writing.
A couple of weeks later, the host of the podcast, Steven Dubner asked how the podcast has helped its listeners. I would say it reminded me in time to revive a basic skill which could have become a relic of the past. Thank You!
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