So you have to write an essay, it is due tomorrow morning, you’ve been staring at an empty screen for hours – and still cannot type a single word no matter what?
Turn the PC off and go get pen and paper – or at least this is what some experts say. No, we are not making it up – try it.
A number of specialists – mostly psychologists, neurologists and educationists – come to an agreement that we were possibly too hasty in dismissing handwriting to the scrapyard of history. Apparently when you write letters by hand there are some areas of brain at work that remain inactive when you simply type them in on a keyboard. Most notably, regions of the brain responsible for reading, as well as its motor cortex (movement center) are all functioning in the process of writing by hand, but not when you type.
It is hard to say what exactly it means and entails, but many experts consider it enough of a proof for the idea that writing by hand is connected with greater creativity and ability to find better solution for current problems. A number of well-known writers, like Truman Capote and Susan Sontag, also opted out from using a computer or a typewriter, preferring the slowness and deliberation of writing by hand – they claimed and claim that it enhances their thought process and allows them to better think things through as they go along, as opposed to lightning-fast typing that makes one too concerned with going forward to form a complete idea of a sentence or a phrase in their head before writing it down.
There is, however, one very, very good reason to step aside from your computer that has nothing to do with alleged benefits to your brain. Writing by hand is, when all is said and done, allows for far fewer distractions. When you are sitting in front of your PC or with a laptop on your knees you are always a click away from your Facebook page, YouTube with its ravenous hordes of cute kittens just waiting to devour your time and that article on Wikipedia you absolutely must read right now. When the only things in front of you are a piece of paper and a pen, there are far fewer things to be distracted by. You get an opportunity to concentrate on the task at hand – so, if you know that your mind tends to wander when you write, it is yet another reason to do it by hand.
There is also an opinion that handwriting can soothe your nerves – there is even a psychological practice called graphotherapy, which aims at improving one’s personal traits by means of writing down positive affirmations or, as a variant, changing ones handwriting. While it may sound a little bit dubious, it certainly won’t do you any harm to try.
So, if you want to make your brain work in ways it probably has already forgotten, boost your creativity and improve your memory – go find that pen. You need all the help you can get.