Complaints that computers and mobile phones are making our children less intelligent and less able to learn have long since become commonplace. Meanwhile, there is some sound grain in these complaints. Although the point here is not in the computers and smartphones themselves. And that they deprive us of the most important skill – the ability to write by hand. Which, as it turns out, is directly related to both ingenuity and the ability to learn.
The relationship of writing with cognitive abilities is traced, independently of each other, by many scientists. For example, French psychologist Stanislas Dehaene believes that this process automatically activates unique neural circuits.1, which stimulate the activity of the brain – and which are inactive in all other cases. The importance of writing skills was also demonstrated by a study by American psychologists Karin James and Laura Engelhardt.2. Moreover, it is interesting that small children, who could neither read nor write, took part in it.
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Common truths
All young participants were shown cards with the image of letters. And then the children were asked to reproduce the letter they saw in one of three ways. Some of them had to try to draw this letter on a piece of paper. To make the task easier, others were given sheets with dotted dots repeating the outlines of the letters – they had to be connected with a pencil. Finally, the third group had to type the desired letter by finding it on the computer keyboard. Then all the children were again shown cards with the same letters. But at the same time scanning their brains.
The result was very telling. The first group of children, those who simply tried to reproduce a letter on a sheet of paper without any prompting, showed increased activity in brain areas that are involved in reading and writing in adults. Neither those who connected the dotted dots nor those who typed letters on the computer showed anything similar.
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In addition to the obvious benefits of stimulating these areas, Caryn James notes many other benefits of writing and handwriting. She, for example, believes that even the difference in handwriting strengthens our cognitive abilities. Any letter, well, let’s say the same “a”, can be written in dozens of different ways. And yet we are always (well, except perhaps when we read doctors’ prescriptions) able to identify her. This ability to isolate semantic units is very important – and especially when teaching children, the psychologist believes.
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All ages are submissive to writing
However, the habit of writing by hand is important for adults as well. Psychologists Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer published a study based both on a series of laboratory experiments and on the experience of observing their own students. His conclusion is unequivocal: those young people who recorded lectures or assignments during experiments by hand learned and remembered information much better than those who used laptops or tablets. Similar effects were noted earlier, but before it was believed that the point here was the dispersion of attention, which, supposedly, could accompany work on a computer. Muller and Oppenheimer, however, convincingly argue that the reason is not the harm of the computer, but the benefit of writing by hand. They are so sure of this that they even made their statement in the title of a scientific article: “The pen is stronger than the keyboard.”3.
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All of the above, of course, does not mean that we need to immediately throw our gadgets in the trash and seat the children at the prescription, forbidding them to even approach the computer. But to make sure that children write by hand freely and without disgust is very worth it, and the sooner the better. And adults will also benefit from this skill.
1 S. Dehaene et al. «How learning to read changes the cortical networks for vision and language». Science, 2010, № 6009.
2 K. James, L. Engelhardt «The effects of handwriting experience on functional brain development in pre-literate children». Trends in Neuroscience and Education, 2012, vol. 1, № 1.
3 P. Mueller, D. Oppenheimer «The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking». Online publication on the website of the journal Psychological Science from 23.04.2014.