Handwritten Is Hardwired

Sentiment, science, and the secret reason your brain loves a good pen.

I was sitting on a phone book at my great-grandmother’s kitchen table. She was addressing Christmas card envelopes. Her hand flowed across each one in swirls and loops.

I worked beside her on my own pad—yellow paper with lines, on the top of which she had drawn cursive letters for me to practice. Again and again, I traced hers, hoping to establish some muscle memory. But my lines were wobbly and weak. My angles leaned inconsistently. The connections between my letters were awkward and tenuous. Still, I kept at it. I desperately wanted handwriting like hers.

Bring back the art of letter writing!

My sentimental attic

In my keepsake box, I can pick up a 35-years-saved birthday card and know by the look of ‘Dear Andrea’ just who it’s from.

My mother’s hand is closest to my great-grandmother’s, while her sister makes lowercase n’s that look like x’s and e’s that look like backwards 3s. My paternal grandmother’s writing was sharp, while my dad preferred uppercase. Each is unique. Each is identifiable. Each feels like them to me.

Reading their words in their hand makes me feel closer to them somehow.

These days, we type.

Other than the occasional greeting card or post-it note, most of us probably don’t even pick up a pen every day. When my kids are forced to write something longhand, their fingers cramp, unused to the stamina we all once had. Don’t get me started on the way today’s kids grip pens. I’ve fought that battle for years with my daughters, correcting their grip and buying the little rubber thingies recommended by occupational therapists. I did not win.

These are the little rubber grip thingies.

Your brain on handwriting

The human touch and unique personality that comes through with handwriting is being erased—and that isn’t the only loss.

Study after study proves that humans commit things to memory and process information better when we put pen to paper. In fact, a 2014 study found that students who took handwritten notes scored 12 - 20% better on conceptual questions than the typing note-takers.

And I actually love the mechanism behind this:

Students who type tend to record lectures word for word. Their typing speed enables them to keep up.

Hand-writers record information more slowly, but they take a moment to process it and parse the important parts (or the connections they’re drawing). This is particularly helpful with abstract concepts, graphics, and equations.

Let’s jump to the science

If you’re like me, you’re wondering if it’s all circumstantial. Is there really a difference or is it just what we get used to? Turns out, through brain scans, there is a difference.

Writing by hand stimulates a cascade of synchronized brain activity linked to memory and learning. Typing doesn’t. The fine motor skills required to write, light up more and different neural pathways. In other words, it takes more brain power to write.

Benefits beyond the classroom

Forget about students and think about what this might mean for adults. As we age and lose neuroplasticity in our brains, could hand-writing things (like a journal) help keep our brains more engaged and functional? Might it stave off cognitive decline in seniors?

The answer is probably-with-a-lean-towards-yes.

Older adults who journal and even those who learn calligraphy have been studied and shown to retain more working memory. Who doesn’t want more working memory? I know I do.

10 Ways to incorporate more longhand into our increasingly digital lives

1. Encourage kids to properly hold writing implements from an early age (3 years old)

2. Keep pens, markers and crayons around for them and you.

3. Adult coloring books for the win

4. Hand write your grocery and to-do lists

5. Restore the practice of written correspondence with a friend (my bestie and I went through a year of writing letters by hand. We need to get back to it. Not only is it good for our brains, but it gives us and anyone who finds them “someday” a time capsule of our lives at that point.)

6. Teach school kids cursive. It’s often not taught in public schools anymore.

7. Encourage kids to outline school essays in longhand before writing them on the computer

8. Journal, journal, journal—and use a great pen you love. So tactile and satisfying!

9. Pick up a hobby that requires manual dexterity—calligraphy, Chinese lettering, Arabic lettering, painting, drawing, etc.

10. Read paper books. Studies show eReaders aren’t as good for our brains.

I save all my greeting cards

Yesterday was Mother’s Day.

I got some cards, and I save each one. I love seeing my children’s evolving handwriting, the scrawl of my husband’s hand, and the distinctive style of my mother-in-law and sister-in-law’s writing. It simply wouldn’t be the same for them to print out a Times New Roman note.

Vive la handwriting!

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