Write It Down

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A new study finds, not surprisingly, that we retain information better when we write it down on paper than when we type it on a keyboard: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/students-retain-information-better-pens-laptops
   The idea behind this is nothing new. Where many schools and parents have started putting much less of an emphasis on handwriting (see, for example, this 2009 article ~ which, btw, includes a nice history of writing ~ http://www.psmag.com/navigation/books-and-culture/handwriting-is-history-6540/), and certainly on cursive, some contrarians have insisted that the physical act of writing engages the brain in a way that simple tapping at keys does not. What's more, they add, the process of learning cursive creates important neural pathways and helps with
eye-hand coordination. One study on handwriting, conducted in 2010, used functional MRI scans to detect changes in the brain between children who practiced handwriting and those who merely looked at the letters. "It seems there is something really important about manually manipulating and drawing out two-dimensional things we see all the time," explained the study's leader, Indiana University assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience Karin Harman James: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704631504575531932754922518