Handwriting vs Typing – Who will be the winner?

We grew up listening to the phrase – “The pen is mightier than sword”. Now we have to teach our children – The pen is mightier than the keyboard…

When was the last time you remember scribbling something on paper? May be a post – it on your desk. Or a comment on your child’s report card. How long ago did you write your last “letter” using a pen and sheet of paper.  When I ask my clients for a writing sample, there first reaction is, “Oh one complete page and that too on an unruled sheet! I haven’t written in the past 6 months!!!”

Are you among the increasing number of people who are swapping from writing to typing?? While typing might be quicker and more convenient, research shows penmanship has its own unique rewards.

According to research carried out by University of California and Princeton University, students who took handwritten notes benefited more in long term as compared to students who typed away on laptops. You may think how is that possible!!? Let me explain…

In spite of the fact, that it is little more time consuming, handwritten notes permit for improved and enhanced short- and long-term memory recall, since they contain your own words and writing. When you write you make spatial relation between each piece of data you are documenting.

Penmanship enacts portions of your cerebrum associated with speculation and working memory, and permits you to store and oversee data. The development related with the pen and your hand can assist you with encoding and hold data in long haul.

When you are writing as opposed to typing, you are more subjected to basic reasoning when you compose by hand than when you type. Handwriting makes you critically think about the data you are noting. It urges you to develop your contemplation and structure associations between them. You can always color code for better connections.

Taking notes longhand very well may be beneficial for youthful authors to work with pen and paper, particularly in the beginning phases of a task. Writing musings down in a journal can help you overcome writer’s block and build up a more material relationship with your story thoughts.

When you take notes by hand, you build up a robust theoretical understanding, as handwriting is a low and tedious process, hence you actually have to process the data and sum it such that bodes well for you. Which represents different advantage of writing to typing which is, writing powers your mind to intellectually draw in with the data, improving both reading and understanding ability.

On the hand, typing encourages word for word precise notes without really thinking about to the data, but avoided what is known as “necessary difficulty”. This careless record can prompt an absence of important arrangement and utilization of the data, in spite of the fact that you might have the option to type more words rapidly.

Writing is linked to improved creativity, critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Writing by hand is a complex cognitive process which involves neuro – sensory experiences and fine motor skills like feeling the surface, holding the writing instrument and directing exact movement with thought.

Drawing each letter by hand improves our grasp of the alphabet, improves subsequent recognition. To help students remember the formation of letters, the teachers ask them to trace it with their fingers. Hence some neuroscientists think that giving up handwriting will affect how future generations learn to read.

With handwriting we come nearer to the warmth and tenderness of the writer. That’s why we are more stirred by the manuscript of a poem than by simply imprinted in a book.

Handwriting has always been viewed as communicating our persona, our character. It’s not simply an issue of composing a letter: it includes drawing, attaining a sense of equivalence and balance. There is a piece of music, a fine – tune in the message, an element which adds a sentiment to the text. I guess that’s why the emojis are invented, to re-establish a little feeling, a human touch to instant message.

Even the ubiquitous Technology, is taking us back to handwriting with the touchscreens and styluses. Our relationship with keyboards may not last.