For the Paper Thinkers

I am a paper thinker. Yes, we live in a society where increasingly everyone puts everything into a cell phone or a computer. People read books and novels with their digital devices. They take notes with their laptops, write documents, and study with digital devices. I cannot do that. I can’t focus enough to do that. I need the freedom of the pen and paper. Even this blog was written by hand with a ballpoint pen and paper in the cursive writing that I was taught going through school.

Why did I choose the word “freedom”? It is simple. A blank piece of paper, even one with lines, is a blank canvas. I can use any kind of pen, pencil, marker, crayon, paintbrush even, to write, draw, or convey whatever thought or idea I may have. Even the way the words are put on the page can have meaning. How I chose to put the ideas on a page has unlimited options. That is freedom.

Someone may argue that computers and tablets can do that, but I disagree. One is always limited by how the computer is programmed. The action to stick an item in the right centre of the page and have it stay there while you fill in around it is not quite so automatically accomplished.

But what about how it sticks in my brain better? With the exception of novels, I am writing notes in the margins and I am highlighting. If I write something out with a pen and paper, I am likely to remember it. It turns out that it’s not just me. It is not all in my head.

There are numerous studies that have been done that supports the effectiveness of learning with pen and paper versus using a laptop. In a 2014 paper by Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer, they “found that students who took notes on laptops performed worse on conceptual questions than students who took notes longhand.” (Mueller, P.A., & Oppenheimer, D.M., 2014) Mueller and Oppenheimer were not the only ones. I found numerous other sources when I put the search criteria into the University of Calgary library search engine. So, now I know that I am not the only one. It is actually a thing for us humans.

When I think about how I am writing this with my pen and paper, I feel fully engaged. My hand is making fine movements to produce letters as I move the pen across the page. I am pushing down on the page to distribute ink through the ball point pen. I am physically engaged. Without really meaning to, I try to make my script somewhat pretty even though I am the only one who will likely read my handwritten version of this blog. In my head, I feel centred and connected to my body in a way that I do not feel when I type. I feel more fully engaged.

There are some more neat studies that have looked into brain functionality. This is where things start to get really interesting. Handwriting and drawing activate more areas of the brain in imaging tests than typing. (Longcamp, M., et al., 2008; Askvik, E.O., et al., 2020; Van der Weel, F.R.R., et al., 2024) One key point that is mentioned in both papers that I have just referenced is how the visual and motor centres are engaged simultaneously. Needless to say, I really feel like I could go down this rabbit hole and spend hours reading about this as I was finding this to be rather fascinating.

With the visual and motor centres engaged in handwriting, how important is being able to write by hand to reading? In the paper by Marieke Longcamp et al., they cite numerous studies and references where they put it all together in this paragraph:

Visual processing of graphic shapes is a very fine spatial skill because graphic shapes have precisely defined configurations and orientations that are crucial features for quick recognition, hence, for efficient reading….motor knowledge acquired through learning how to write contributes to the visual recognition of letters. Firstly, neuroimaging and brain-damaged patient studies showed that regions of the cortical motor system participate in recognition and visual imagery of characters. Secondly behavioural studies have indicated that handwriting memory facilitates recognition and mental imagery of characters. (Longcamp, M., et al., 2008)

Essentially, this implies that reading involves the whole body and is not just a visual process. Further along in that same paper, it goes on to mention two studies that showed that if children learned to write with a keyboard before mastering handwriting, it affects “the way they perceive written language….Both studies confirmed that letters or characters learned through typing were subsequently recognized less accurately than letters or characters written by hand.” (Longcamp, M., et al., 2008)

I  guess that means that all those days in kindergarten where we would spend hours drawing letters really were contributing to our ability to read before we even started grade one. Then, in grade two, in the spirit of the copybooks that were employed for centuries before I was even born, we started to learn cursive writing with the MacLean Compendium For Writing. We spent more hours drawing and tracing letters. We did that every year until we finished grade six. Spending all that time on our penmanship has a long tradition dating back centuries through the use of copybooks. I remember how I could not write the way the books demonstrated and was so happy to move away from that as I moved onto intermediate school.

Now, we have all this evidence that handwriting is important. What about all those schoolboards who eliminated it from the curriculum? Not just the handwriting activities, but the art activities? There is work being done in Norway where they have demonstrated through imaging that handwriting and drawing are necessary for “the formation of more complex neural networks. It also appears that the movements related to keyboard typing do not activate these networks the same way that drawing and handwriting do.” (Askvik, E.A., et al., 2020) It turns out that my frustration of never being able to write exactly like the writing compendium was still beneficial to rewiring my brain, and the brains of my classmates.

It turns out that being a paper thinker is a good thing after all. It is not a waste of time to spend time drawing letters and numbers. We are a long way from the attitudes of the 18th century where writing was linked to moral behaviour as “mutually reinforcing practices”. (Sloboda, 2014) However, it does appear that we have the proof that the copybook authors of the 18th century were right about this:

Copybook authors presented writing as a practice which involved a continuous and skillful engagement with objects and materials that required a particular attention to disciplining one’s body and gestures. The scripts prescribed by copybooks also demanded attentiveness, skill, and discipline...By emphasising the importance of comportment and movement of the body to the appearance of script, copybook authors situated writing as an embodied practice.” (Sloboda, 2014)

Based on all this, it is safe to say that handwriting mastery is just as important today as it was centuries ago. It is more than aesthetics, it is tied to how we think and perceive the world. It is still key to strong communication skills through the written word.

All hail to the paper thinkers!!

References:

Longcamp M, Boucard C, Gilhodes JC, Anton JL, Roth M, Nazarian B, Velay JL. Learning through hand- or typewriting influences visual recognition of new graphic shapes: behavioral and functional imaging evidence. J Cogn Neurosci. 2008 May;20(5):802-15. doi: 10.1162/jocn.2008.20504. PMID: 18201124.

Mangen, A., Anda, L. G., Oxborough, G. H., & Brřnnick, K. (2015). Handwriting versus keyboard writing: Effect on word recall. Journal of Writing Research, 7(2), 227–247. https://doi.org/10.17239/jowr-2015.07.02.1

Mueller, P. A., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2014). The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking. Psychological Science, 25(6), 1159-1168. https://doi-org.ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca/10.1177/0956797614524581

Ose Askvik E, van der Weel FRR, van der Meer ALH. The Importance of Cursive Handwriting Over Typewriting for Learning in the Classroom: A High-Density EEG Study of 12-Year-Old Children and Young Adults. Front Psychol. 2020 Jul 28;11:1810. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01810. PMID: 32849069; PMCID: PMC7399101.

Sloboda, S. (2014) Between the Mind and the Hand: Gender, Art and Skill in Eighteenth-Century Copybooks, Women's Writing, 21:3, 337-356, DOI: 10.1080/09699082.2014.922298

Van der Weel FRR, Van der Meer ALH. Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread brain connectivity: a high-density EEG study with implications for the classroom. Front Psychol. 2024 Jan 26;14:1219945. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1219945. PMID: 38343894; PMCID: PMC10853352.