With our smartphones and laptops, we type on keyboards more often than write by hand. Typing has become our preferred method of writing everything from business emails to personal to-do lists. Even though typing is faster and more convenient, research shows that handwriting has unique advantages.
So if you are an avid typist, do yourself a favor and check out these advantages of handwriting over typing. Grab a pad of paper and a pen to start taking handwritten notes!
1. Effective Memory Recall.
The motion associated with the pen and hand can help you encode and retain information long-term.
2. Sharpened Critical Thinking.
Handwriting allows you to think more thoroughly about the information you are recording. It encourages you to deepen your thoughts and make connections between them.
3. Stronger Conceptual Understanding.
Since handwriting is slower and more tedious, it is harder to take word-by-word notes. Therefore, you need to process the information and summarize it in a way that makes sense.
4. Writing by hand can be artistic.
Many people choose handwritten notes over computer notes simply because they prefer the aesthetic. If you have impeccable penmanship or are skilled at cursive and calligraphy, handwriting notes can give you an outlet to practice a hobby while also working on a creative endeavor.
5. Writing by hand helps you avoid distractions.
Technology can be an incredibly time-consuming and distracting part of our lives as writers. It is essential to focus and eliminate distractions when writing fiction.
6. Writing by hand exercises the right hemisphere of the brain.
Although writing may seem like second nature, especially as we move further away from kindergarten, it is a simple form of expression. Each letter is a unique design that we must form correctly. A series of designs then create words. As we shape letters and create words, the right hemisphere of our brain — that is, the artistic side of our brain that sees in pictures — is activated. When we write on a computer, this doesn't happen.
7. Writing something down can help you get it done.
Interestingly, positive links have been found between handwriting goals and lists and reaching goals. According to Dr. Jordan Peterson, “It appears possible that writing, which is a formalized form of thinking, helps people derive information from their experiences that help them guide their perceptions, actions, thoughts, and emotions in the present." Want to go on that vacation next year? Write it on the calendar. Have a list of tasks you want to get done? Write them down.
8. The practice of writing by hand is calming and therapeutic.
According to handwriting expert Dr. Marc Seifer, writing by hand can be a type of graphotherapy. For those who have a goal they wish to attain, such as being more peaceful, Dr. Seifer recommends writing the goal statement down 20 times each day. Doing so, he says, "actually calms the person down and retrains the brain."
For whatever cause you choose to write than typing, at least some of your everyday notes, we have a whole collection of unique notebooks to find the one that suits you best. Find the one that inspires you, fits your style and aesthetic, and the one that makes you write in it the most!
Explore our notebooks today and start your writing journey as soon as possible!
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