Handwriting's on the wall

[Maxmars]

[Here something I ran across earlier... I hesitated because I recalled an old haunt where I would have categorized this as an "education" topic.
But since it was originally reported in as a psychology topic I will place it here]

This is about the act of handwriting... as in, writing by hand.

The original source of this is a research paper entitled: 
Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread brain connectivity

(Although it spawned an article in the Epoch Times and was also "aggregated" by Zero Hedge.)
 

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As traditional handwriting is progressively being replaced by digital devices, it is essential to investigate the implications for the human brain. Brain electrical activity was recorded in 36 university students as they were handwriting visually presented words using a digital pen and typewriting the words on a keyboard. Connectivity analyses were performed on EEG data recorded with a 256-channel sensor array. When writing by hand, brain connectivity patterns were far more elaborate than when typewriting on a keyboard, as shown by widespread theta/alpha connectivity coherence patterns between network hubs and nodes in parietal and central brain regions. Existing literature indicates that connectivity patterns in these brain areas and at such frequencies are crucial for memory formation and for encoding new information and, therefore, are beneficial for learning....

We urge that children, from an early age, must be exposed to handwriting activities in school to establish the neuronal connectivity patterns that provide the brain with optimal conditions for learning...

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Now I know I may be preaching to the choir, as one who feels that the act of writing can be a fulfilling exercise; it bears noting that there is at least some evidence that the practice has scientifically verifiable benefits... especially to developing brains.

I was wondering about our extended families (people we know, friends, their children, etc.) 

I have yet to find any kids in my area who don't know how to write... but are we in danger of that?  Is that something, in this world of forms and submitted paperwork, that people are coming to the point of NOT being able to do unless it's online?  It's seems possible now that you can dictate whatever you like verbally and have it appear as if you wrote it... but are we really there?

[DISRAELI]

That's been my own experience with hand-writing. It tends to focus the mind more clearly, and it impresses things on the memory. I'm still recommending it to anyone who wants to study. And if schools would only resume the teaching of cursive writing, then note-taking would not slow people down.

Being able to dictate text would be a communications disaster, because of the problem of sloppy pronunciation. This is already responsible for meaningless cliches like "You've got another thing coming" and "Thay are one in the same". But the worst offence has to be allowing "can" to be the negative of "can", so that there is no possible way of telling whether "You can do that" is giving permission or refusing it.

[Maxmars]

Hopefully, my hyperbolic implication of a coming time when people won't know how to write is unlikely.  After all, if a person can read, they must surely be able to at least try to write.

More research is required to flesh out the findings here, as it is only one application of this line of questioning.  Other researchers seem to question the study, but not to refute the assertion, but to more precisely refine the data with better measurements...

It seems clear though, the act of linking motor-skills (writing) and reasoning, engenders more robust brain activity than typing.

Too bad my handwriting is nigh indecipherable.  [insert heavy sigh herein]

[Tecate]

I personally can attest to the fact that I retain almost everything that I write down.
I do in fact write in a cursive/print hybrid style, but note taking and speeches or PowerPoint type presentations are always hand written first before being put into digital format.
Perhaps I’m just old school…

Tecate

[Maxmars]

I personally can attest to the fact that I retain almost everything that I write down.
I do in fact write in a cursive/print hybrid style, but note taking and speeches or PowerPoint type presentations are always hand written first before being put into digital format.
Perhaps I’m just old school…

Tecate

I think 'old school' seems more beneficial than 'new' school.

I suppose that it could be argued that the jury is still out... but writing things out seems more 'organic' than typing.  How ever that is not to imply that typing can't be satisfying and effective as well.  I wonder if future studies will examine the difference between 'creating' written works by typing as opposed to typing.

We shall see, I suppose.

[Nugget]

My 17 y/o granddaughter can't read cursive; it's no longer taught in schools. That's even less brain power being utilized, along with allowing calculators to do all their math equasions. I wonder what people are going to do with all that unused brain power? 'If you don't use it, you'll lose it' comes to mind. 

Studies have shown elderly people who do crossword puzzles keep their brains active stave off demention.  Having a brain full of cells that were never activated in the first place doesn't seem like a very good idea.

[Hefficide]

Hey Max!

This is a topic that I've spent a reasonable amount of time researching and pondering. Started in the late 90's, I think, when the decision to remove cursive writing from curriculum first came out.

At the time my knee jerk reaction - and a knee that continued jerking for many years - was that this would only serve to produce a population of people who would have to take, upon faith, the contents and context of many historical documents - foundational documents included.

However my outrage finally subsided to a fair degree when I finally matured enough to take it up on myself to read these documents in their original form, quickly realizing that the writing and prose of even 200 to 300 years ago was very difficult to parse and understand.

Going back just a few hundred more years and it's nearly impossible.

Now here we are, faced with the very real possibility that within a generation. literacy will very well be at an all time high, globally, but also a world where a person with the dexterous skill of manual handwriting may well be an oddity and rarity.

My knee jerk reaction, this time around, is to wonder if this will be a case of losing something to gain something else? At least in terms of human creativity and mental acumen?

This curiosity comes from my subjective knowledge that while I was trained, specifically, via mechanical drafting classes, to perfect my manual block printing and, at one point, had admirable penmanship in cursive as well... Well I cannot tell you the last time I chose to use either of those skills. I do keep a notebook with computer passwords in it - for all the various websites and services - but that's basically all I ever write down anymore.

Yet in terms of how much I "write" - via keyboard? My output is exponentially higher than it was at any point prior to the digital world. Truth is I likely output more in typed words, on any given day, than I would have in months and months in the world before things went digital.

My point here... It's entirely probable that not using the part of brains required for handwriting can cause some mental atrophy - but is it not also possible that, in return, the part of the mind required for typing might make up for that difference? New neurons and pathways, just in a different spot?

If so - maybe it's not a bad thing.

[BeTheGoddess]

In 2013 I went back to university to try study law. I purchased one of those iPad things. The notes I wrote down on it wernt retained like writing on paper--maybe we're ol fashioned, but the putting pen to paper thing just... works.

Similar with using waxom tablets to draw, yeah cool you have a lot more options drawing directly into PS or Illustrator, but it feels kinda souless.

[Byrd]

Hopefully, my hyperbolic implication of a coming time when people won't know how to write is unlikely.  After all, if a person can read, they must surely be able to at least try to write.

More research is required to flesh out the findings here, as it is only one application of this line of questioning.  Other researchers seem to question the study, but not to refute the assertion, but to more precisely refine the data with better measurements...

It seems clear though, the act of linking motor-skills (writing) and reasoning, engenders more robust brain activity than typing.

Too bad my handwriting is nigh indecipherable.  [insert heavy sigh herein]

Excellent points (and you beat me to several of them.)  I agree that there needs to be more research to flesh out the findings.

...and like you, my handwriting is almost unreadable. 

I understand that many people prefer to print (my own cursive style is a mix of printed and cursive letters) rather than to use cursive.  It has a number of advantages; the main being that it's easier to read.  But if we look at history, we can see that ancient Egypt had three different types of "similar" alphabets (demotic, hieratic, hieroglyphs) that were all used at the same time (much as we have cursive and print) and each had its own uses.  Hieroglyphs are most similar to printing -- no one used them when writing long things on papyri.  They're used for public announcements and proclamations.  Hieratic was closest to our cursive (and can be darn hard to read, by the way)

Demotic arose much later (around 2,000 years later) as an "improvement"... didn't last, though, and was rapidly overtaken by alphabet systems with far fewer letters (there are well over 500 known hieroglyphs.)

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My point here... It's entirely probable that not using the part of brains required for handwriting can cause some mental atrophy - but is it not also possible that, in return, the part of the mind required for typing might make up for that difference? New neurons and pathways, just in a different spot?

If so - maybe it's not a bad thing.

Not much to add but wanted to say that I really enjoyed (and agree with) your post.

[Maxmars]

Excellent points (and you beat me to several of them.)  I agree that there needs to be more research to flesh out the findings.

...and like you, my handwriting is almost unreadable. 

I understand that many people prefer to print (my own cursive style is a mix of printed and cursive letters) rather than to use cursive.  It has a number of advantages; the main being that it's easier to read.  But if we look at history, we can see that ancient Egypt had three different types of "similar" alphabets (demotic, hieratic, hieroglyphs) that were all used at the same time (much as we have cursive and print) and each had its own uses.  Hieroglyphs are most similar to printing -- no one used them when writing long things on papyri.  They're used for public announcements and proclamations.  Hieratic was closest to our cursive (and can be darn hard to read, by the way)

Demotic arose much later (around 2,000 years later) as an "improvement"... didn't last, though, and was rapidly overtaken by alphabet systems with far fewer letters (there are well over 500 known hieroglyphs.)

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Many thanks for applying your knowledge to the topic.  I hadn't considered the application of a historical perspective on this.  I imagine that people in the past had lots of trepidation when it came to actually writing things.  It was not only a matter of training and skill, but some degree of pressure to step into a 'status' world where writing was constrained for a specific and 'official' purpose (religious storytelling, governance, for example) and not so much for formal learning, or creative impulse. I wonder if across the spectrum of 'writing' in the ancient past there was much "writing" by the general population, or was it all business and official record-keeping?  Feel free to ignore the curiosity... I think I'm drifting off topic.