On one hand (heh) there’s apparently evidence to suggest that handwriting activates parts of the brain which aren’t typically activated by just typing something out. I can see how that would be the case and why it could sometimes be useful.
On the other, the idea of carrying a little notebook around to jot things down when I have a phone in my pocket, or using a fountain pen for longform text (trust me it would actually help you avoid hand cramps, aside from being less wasteful) all comes across as… intentionally inefficient? I struggle to see intentional inefficiency as anything but pretension. Like it’s all just fetishizing living a more analogue life.
It actually makes the techbro in me think there’s something to companies like Supernote and Boox and ReMarkable making e-ink tables that exist mainly so that what you do choose to write by hand can be digitized, stored and made searchable.
I suppose that’s actually exactly why people tend to journal in physical notebooks? Because what you put down in there will just disappear unless you crack open that notebook again.
…Meanwhile I’m pretty sure a lot of people feel that writing things by hand gets their creative juices flowing. That’s sort of interesting to me, because personally, by the time I’m finished writing a single sentence whatever I was thinking about is halfway gone. If I don’t get it down real quick my thoughts will drift to something else entirely, so when I had to handwrite essays in primary school I’d get completely stuck in a way I never do just typing things.
TL;DR someone who’s bad at empathy talks about handwriting as if everyone else experiences the world exactly the same way, please knock him off of his stupid pedestal
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I type for a living (developer) and I find that I can type WAY faster than I can write. So that is how I prefer to communicate with people and interact with most things during my day. However, when I am on a meeting or a call, I just cannot multitask well enough to capture key details on a computer. I have no idea what my disconnect with that is, but I’ve given up on trying to type notes and memos while I’m on a call and invested in a fountain pen and a good pad of paper. I will mention that I do really enjoy the feel of a really good pen on paper and maybe that type of feedback is what lets my brain take handwritten notes better.
Honestly I find that making physical hand written notes better cements the ideas in my head. It may be because I’m older so I started with only pen and paper which means that’s how I best think, but for me writing and typing are two different tools and I tend to use both.
I like to do both. There are times where I need to type everything, because my typing speed can keep up with my thoughts. I can get all of the thoughts out of my head quickly, and clear my head so I can focus. It’s also easier to do in some places, like when I’m at work - typing myself a quick note and then emailing it to my home email (or saving it in drive), is much faster and more likely to make it where I need it to go. I tend to forget physical items at work.
Writing by hand I use for journaling. For slowing down and taking time to do something. For magic - where I want to put intention and energy into the words and sometimes burn the paper after. For when my eyes are so sick of screens that I just need a break, but still need to get those thoughts out. I’d also rather handwrite something then type it on my phone - Eventually I need to get one with a stylus so I can just write on the screen.
It’s the same reason I usually draw things by hand, then scan them to digitize. I have a tablet. I use it for digitization. But my art is generally better by hand.
Writing by hand is definitely the main way I learn. The act of writing it embeds it in my memory moreso than looking at a screen.
I wonder how much of that is down to how we were taught though and it being more familiar and linked with education and cognition. Someone must have done a study on this somewhere.
I struggle with it, mostly because I get frustrated how much faster I can type compared to handwriting things. I haven’t hand written things since I left school.
Definitely typing but whenever I have to take notes for a class I need to hand write it since typing equations is awful in comparison
I like doing math problems written out by hand, it’s just much nicer to have the freedom to make whatever marks you want and put things wherever you want/need, I really see the appeal in that regard. I could get good at using some of the math typing tools out there but they just don’t allow the same kind of flow.
Otherwise, it really just makes my hand hurt and being left handed adds an extra level of inconvenience to it.
I use physical hand writing for two things,
- When I get stressed and have to remember too many things (like I lose sleep because I can’t stop thinking about it) I will carry a tiny journal in my pocket and write stuff in it I need to remember and cross it out when it is done. The less strict the rules of it the better. It is far from “bullet journaling”.
- If I need to take names while doing something else. Physical paper and pencil is better for whatever reason. Be it a video game, DND, anything. It’s just easier to start and stop quick with a pencil on paper than it is on something physical.
If I need to take names while doing something else. Physical paper and pencil is better for whatever reason. Be it a video game, DND, anything. It’s just easier to start and stop quick with a pencil on paper than it is on something physical.
Ooh this is a REALLY good idea actually. I’m absolutely horrible at remembering names.
That was a typo, I meant notes not named oops 😬
I don’t see choosing to handwrite inefficient or pretentious. I see it as something familiar that I enjoy because I have had a journal since my teens.
As a trained professional working with older adults, I also know that keeping up writing can help promote brain health. There has been plenty of research published on this, including that regular practice of reading and writing can help stave off onset of dementia in older adults, so it’s basically brain exercise.
That said, I write grants for work, narratives for our contracts and so forth, so I also appreciate that when under a time crunch I can bang out something fast on my keyboard after I have spent a little time drafting out initial ideas.
At the end of the day, I think a lot of this just depends on your views about writing in general (regardless of the tools you use); some people hate it no matter what they have to do on. Meanwhile, there are old gits like me that you have pry out of bookstores with a crowbar because after my scanning of the SciFi section, I get busy having too much fun snooping through the isles displaying leather journals and pots of fountain pen ink in goofy colours, and packs of stationary with cute designs. 😂
Pen or keyboard, it’s all good.
None of my bookstores have journals or ink! You’re very lucky wherever you live, I have to order all my stuff online.
I’m a game developer so I’m frequently in front of a computer and take a lot of notes that way, but nothing quite feels the same as a nice fountain pen, and anecdotally I feel like I do recall things I handwrite a lot better than those I type.
…for memory retention though it can go either way really, because if you handwrite it you just remember it better, but if you type it up you have it instantly indexable searchable wherever so remembering it isn’t as important because you can find it immediately.
