Here’s why you should still jot stuff down by hand

Not long ago, there was much more of an emphasis placed on the importance of developing good handwriting and penmanship as you advanced through the school system. Now, students are taught handwriting for one or maybe two years before making the transition to learning about how to type on a keyboard. And that style of computerized writing is reinforced even more the further you progress in the education system. Almost all students have laptops at their disposal on university campuses these days.

While many educators have accepted the change in curriculum, professionals in the sciences assert that handwriting can still be more valuable than people think.

“When we write, a unique neural circuit is automatically activated,” said Stanislas Dehaene, a psychologist at College de France in Paris, in an interview with The New York Times. “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.”

Karin James, a psychologist at Indiana University, carried out a study in 2012 that supported that notion.

Five-year-olds, still illiterate, printed, typed or traced letters and shapes in the research. The children were then shown images of the letters or shapes they had just written while being monitored by an MRI machine. The parts of the brain that signifies learning (in reading and writing subjects specifically) showed much more activity with the examples that the kids had handwritten, not traced or typed.

In a world that places so much emphasis on electronic gadgets and gizmos, it’s often difficult to find an opportunity to sit down and write something by hand (the old-fashioned way!). Get into the habit of sending “Thank You” cards after your birthday or postcards just because, and make sure you hand write them!