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

  • Enfield [he/him]@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Personally I’ve always had a strong preference and better time with typing compared to writing.

    Maybe it was because I was put in front of a keyboard at a relatively early age, or maybe because I was on a computer more than many of my peers? Maybe it’s related to potential traits that could come with being AuDHD that I was never raised to consider? Maybe it’s being left-handed and writing in a left-to-right written language? It’s probably a loose combination of all of these.

    My typing is quicker than my peers, but I think that gets compounded with my writing being slower, too. I’d say that my handwriting is legible enough, but I just absolutely cannot write at an efficient speed compared to a lot of other people. I don’t necessarily mind taking things slow, but it means I miss out on info that others wouldn’t. Having the ability to type my notes starting around late high school and going into college was a serious boon for my notetaking. Before then, I’d have a solid idea of what I wanted to jot down, but the class would be leaps and bounds ahead by the time I wrapped up a bullet point. Getting pencil lead or pen ink all over my fingers certainly didn’t help my ability to keep up, either.

    I also find a lot more benefit from doing notes digitally compared to by hand. I really appreciate being able to tag things and search around loosely, and I find myself much more capable of shifting things around and getting things to look just the way I want them compared to doing so on a notebook. Sometimes there’s quirks with my notetaking app of the time that’ll grind my gears, but it’s ultimately a better experience than doing it by hand for me. Need to shift something from one section to another? What about from one page to another? No problem, Cut-and-Paste is something that any program will have. I’m not gonna do that cleanly and quickly on paper. Need to make a table or put in an image? Most if not all of the notetaking apps I’ll use will be capable of that, whereas doing that by hand will take me much longer. Is there something I really need to write or draw by hand? Likewise, most if not all notetaking apps I use let me switch between the two when I’m on a device that lets me take advantage of that. I don’t have the freedom to choose how I do that on paper.

    While I get that there’s a lot of evidence out there that says people remember things better when written down compared to writing, that’s just…never been my experience? I never felt a strong difference in how I remember something or how creative I am whether I write it or type it. If anything, I personally find it easier to remember things or explore things when I do it digitally. By all means, if someone does better with writing, I say let them write. But personally, being forced to write has only been a disservice.

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    All that said, there is a place in me for writing or generally working physically, however. It’s still oftentimes a lot easier and privacy respecting to directly hand strangers a note jot down on a pocketbook than it is to juggle contact info and send it over. Physical notes can also be placed to be read later in a way that digital notes can’t. And no matter the preparation I do, I’d say there’s always a higher chance for my digital devices to die on me compared to my physical ones. It doesn’t get nearly as much use as my phone, and most days I don’t need it, but I keep a lil’ pocketbook and a few pens on me to fill those edge cases.