Writing by hand helps mental efficiency

We are experiencing ever growing use of mobile devices like the smart phone to do the sort of things we did solely on a computer many years ago. Hand writing is now threatened with extinction.  There you have students with an entire quarter of a year for holiday taking a break from school work that requires writing anything.

With the proliferation of computers and all manner of electronic word-processing tools, people migrate from paper to keyboards. When one’s job does not involve any serious writing, planning and constantly working with teams studying situations and proposing solutions, there’s hardly any writing by hand. You may also not be surprised to discover that most of the elegantly dressed men and women going into offices do not have a pen with them. 

For many, the pen is simply décor that tops their neat shirt and tie or corporate uniform. They hardly use the pen to write anything personal save for completing papers that are part and parcel of their day routine. Writing by hand is costly when one has to spend time word-processing their notes. But the activity is useful in other ways. Reader, here is why you should not fall for the trap of easy word processing facilities.

Mental efficiency

The writer Robert Stone was once asked whether he mostly types his manuscripts. He said he types most of the time until he encounters difficulty going forward. He prefers writing with the hand for greater precision. The pen compels lucidity. The exercise of writing is indispensable part of effort towards mental efficiency. It helps for one to be able to compose sentences and achieve continuity. I do not know how many people keep diaries today. They are certainly fewer than they were few decades ago.

Writing by hand is more than just a way to communicate. Research has established that we do not only learn letters but also idea composition and expression when we put pen to paper. In a 2008 study, adults were asked to distinguish between new characters and a mirror image of them after producing the characters using pen and paper and a computer keyboard. Those writing by hand had a stronger and lasting recognition of the characters’ proper orientation. 

This suggests the movements one makes when writing help visual identification of shapes. It has also been found in a separate study that students who write essays by hand write more words, write faster and express more ideas than when they write with a keyboard. It is also true that people often judge the quality of our ideas from handwriting. Teachers who grade homework or examinations know about this. There’s often mental bias when you see a script with neat handwriting and orderly presentation.

Culture

After school there may not be many opportunities to write by hand other than those created by the individual. In order to avoid getting out of touch with the practice, I propose the use of a diary or a journal. Diaries are not as engaging as one may enter details about their day into a diary with very little mental effort. They also allow for exaggeration of our egotism. When left lying loose, they may cause strife in relationships and homes.  

A journal is better. Whereas a diary mostly caters for self and one’s activities exclusively, a journal roams wider. A diary relates that one woke up with a headache that may have been attributable to mental stress. The journal follows through to the way the young lawyer at the corporate dinner that day had brown eyes and a trick of throwing her head back when asking a question. Writing a journal helps one to discover motivations for their actions and to uncover other internal tendencies. Many people today tend to reproduce idly the thoughts of others and to swayed by every passing gust of emotion.

Our new handheld devices may have many advantages, but I doubt that they can capture what happens when a human hand and a pen meet paper.

(This article was first published in the Daily Monitor newspaper)