The science of handwriting: why writing by hand boosts memory (even digitally)

Could handwriting—even on a screen—be the secret to learning faster?

We used to spend hours writing by hand in school. Today we type, text, and even dictate more than we ever pick up a pen. It’s less clutter, faster, and easier to edit after the fact.

But is that the case for all forms of writing? Are there some things that are meant to be written by hand, instead of typed? While there are big advantages to typewriting, we may all be missing the point by throwing handwriting out the window altogether.

Is writing by hand better for memory and learning?

Using your fine motor system to scribble down each word helps you take in what you’re putting on paper much better than typing them on a screen. The first study to reveal this secret was published in 2014, named “The Pen is Mightier Than the Keyboard”. Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer found that while laptop note-takers wrote more words, participants that took notes by hand performed better on tests requiring understanding of those materials.

Why does writing by hand promote learning and memorization?

In their study, Mueller and Oppenheimer pointed out that typing leads to verbatim transcription. We’ve all experienced this. You’re in a lecture or a meeting, and you’re just mindlessly typing every word that comes to your ears—not processing the information at all. Handwriting is a much slower process, which means you can’t write down everything that’s said. It forces you to process the information yourself and write down only what really matters.

A more recent study published in Frontiers in Psychology has found an even more fundamental reason to handwriting’s advantage over typewriting. Writing letters by hand is a highly complex brain activity, and this activates areas of the brain in charge of learning and memorizing new information, according to the research by Ruud Van der Weel and Audrey Van der Meer.

Our findings suggest that the spatiotemporal pattern from visual and proprioceptive information obtained through the precisely controlled hand movements when using a pen, contribute extensively to the brain’s connectivity patterns that promote learning.

To borrow the words of Marieka Longcamp, a neuroscientist at Aix-Marseille Université, “Handwriting is probably among the most complex motor skills that the brain is capable of.” All five fingers have to hold the pen with just the right pressure, then modify that pressure to move the tip of the pen in exact shapes to create letters. That’s not all—your eyes have to recognize each letter and continuously provide feedback to write the words consistently and in line.

None of this is required when you’re typing letters with a keyboard.

Does it also help with journaling?

You can achieve similar benefits when journaling your own thoughts. Because it takes more effort to write down each word—and even more to fix them later—you are likely to be more selective of the words you use, and what ideas you put down.

Plus, you will also be able to process and remember your entries better because you’re activating those same connections in your brain that aids memorization.

Do I have to write on paper to reap the benefits of handwriting?

If you’re worried you’ll have to give up tech altogether, hang tight. The cognitive advantages of handwriting are not tied to the medium. Even when writing on a tablet with a stylus, the same movements are used—and thus—the same advantages are applicable.

Ramesh Balasubramaniam, neuroscientist at the University of California, Merced, stresses that it’s the movement that counts, not the medium. In fact, in the famous study mentioned above—Van der Weel and Van der Meer used a digital pen for the handwriting group to reach their conclusion.

What’s the best way to take notes?

There exists a happy middle between digital and analog—an option that unlocks both the cognitive benefits of handwriting and the technological benefits of digital note-taking. As you might have guessed, it’s writing your notes by hand on tablet devices. Tablet devices like iPads provide an excellent handwriting experience when paired with the right apps, which means you can write notes by hand sans the clutter.

Apps like Goodnotes even provides features like being able to search through your handwritten notes or enhancing your handwriting with AI. For some people, this may be the perfect solution that satisfies their want to retain their love for handwriting while being able to carry a single tablet with all the notes they ever need, easily searchable, in their backpack.

So where do I start?

If you want to look into which iPad to buy, we put together a guide to help you with that. Check it out here.

If you already have a tablet, but need digital notebooks to go with it, visit Webudding for 20,000+ digital stationeries from quality creators.

Whether you return to pen and paper or embrace the stylus, reintroducing handwriting into your routine could help your brain remember more—and your thoughts flow better.