> Being left handed is fine
As a lefty, I would rather never write another word then twist my hand the way he's doing (above the current line) to avoid the smudges.
Writing by hand is good for your brain
241–250 of 708 posts
Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain
#242I always wrote by hand - probably because I spent over a decade in academia dealing with equations. I always have a pen in my pocket (without a pocket protector!) About a decade ago I went back to writing with fountain pens after a nearly two decade hiatus. Oh, the joy! But very sad he has no (real) tips on dealing with hand fatigue - other than to write in cursive. I always had hand fatigue for writing long stretche…
I also write with fountain pens these days. Do you have a favorite model?
It changes every few years.
My first was the Pilot Metropolitan. Still a solid pen I recommend.
My next favorite was/is a PenBBS - perhaps the 309 - I don't have it on me at the moment. I replaced the nib with a Goulet nib, and somehow made it extremely smooth. I've not been able to make any other Goulet nib that smooth - somehow got lucky.
These days I'm heavily using a Platinum Plaisir which is also surprisingly smooth (no modifications).
Every time I've paid more than $50 for a pen, it hasn't been worth it. I can't get the ink in my Opus 88 pen to flow consistently. I'm sick of it.
I'm partial to Faber Castell nibs, but the pen I bought had a grip that I didn't like, and I don't want to spend the money to try their other pens.
Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain
#243I'm surprised he didn't mention editing. On a computer this is trivial; on paper you need an ink eradicator, correction tape, or correction fluid. And even those are only good for small corrections. If you want to insert a sentence or paragraph somewhere, that's not really possible with paper. Also, if you want your text to be published online or printed, it needs to be digitized somehow. Which is a good OCR tool for…
I suspect it's because Stepenson stopped editing his work a long time ago.
He used to write a ton and edit it down to a normal-sized book, but once he got popular he just decided to (seemingly) publish everything he wrote, without editing.
Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain
#244I've always been pretty skeptical of the data which says handwriting is better for learning than typing. Yes, handwriting causes more brain activity, but just because your brain is doing more does not mean it's doing the right thing! For example, if I asked you to code FizzBuzz while riding a unicycle, I'm pretty sure you would show more brain activity than if you were just sitting at a desk. This does not mean it's…
>your brain is doing more does not mean it's doing the right thing!
the thing it's doing when writing with your hand is fine motor control, one of the most important and distinguishing abilities that humans have.
I tutor in a makerspace and one thing I've observed it's that it's now easier to teach old people how to solder than younger kids, and that in my experience has never been the case before. Due to growing up on impoverished digital interfaces I see lack of dexterity that I've never seen in young people before. Same reason I suspect you see a decline in people picking up tactile musical instruments like the guitar or violin.
Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain
#245I've always been pretty skeptical of the data which says handwriting is better for learning than typing. Yes, handwriting causes more brain activity, but just because your brain is doing more does not mean it's doing the right thing! For example, if I asked you to code FizzBuzz while riding a unicycle, I'm pretty sure you would show more brain activity than if you were just sitting at a desk. This does not mean it's…
Riding a unicycle and coding are not complementary activities - you are multitasking. Writing is aligning different parts of your brain to the same task, perhaps it is just creating additional focus.
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Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain
#246> I’m not an expert on how the brain works, but I can say that, Aaaaaand time to tune out.
You've been downvoted to oblivion, but I figured I'll use you as a meat shield since there isn't a single other reply of criticality here AFAICT. The study talks about connections and frequency, but that seems like a very coarse measure for something as complex as the brain. > Increased connectivity within the theta (3.5–7.5 Hz) and alpha (8–12.5 Hz) frequency bands has been linked to mechanisms underlying sensorimot…
This is a fair response and I think would be a good top level comment, you don't need a meat shield. The reason the parent was downvoted was that it isn't criticism, it's just a declaration that they didn't read the article.
There are a lot of citations in the paper backing up the idea that handwriting promotes learning, though (or at least spelling, memory, recall, and letter recognition/understanding). It reads to me like an attempt to explain an observed phenomenon: "given that handwriting appears to promote learning, what could be a mechanism for that?" It isn't in a vacuum just claiming that "these brain signals clearly prove that learning is happening".
The "general discussion" section also covers why the specific connectivity they looked at might be related to learning.
Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain
#247I've always been pretty skeptical of the data which says handwriting is better for learning than typing. Yes, handwriting causes more brain activity, but just because your brain is doing more does not mean it's doing the right thing! For example, if I asked you to code FizzBuzz while riding a unicycle, I'm pretty sure you would show more brain activity than if you were just sitting at a desk. This does not mean it's…
The studies I'm familiar with have tested recall at various intervals, not brain activity.
Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain
#248I've always been pretty skeptical of the data which says handwriting is better for learning than typing. Yes, handwriting causes more brain activity, but just because your brain is doing more does not mean it's doing the right thing! For example, if I asked you to code FizzBuzz while riding a unicycle, I'm pretty sure you would show more brain activity than if you were just sitting at a desk. This does not mean it's…
The problem is you immediately assume studies haven’t thought of that
Do you know that is how simplistic these studies actually are?
Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain
#249- coding without an LLM is also good for your brain - whose gonna tell it to em? - dont worry, the long term studies are going to pick this up big time 5 years from now
Coding manually keeps you focused on irrelevant details. I find people that actually like that cognitive style and try to remain in it for as long as possible insanely unproductive. They'll spend years coding up shit that can be replaced in a month. I've seen it happen multiple times now and I'm getting sick of it. Proper problem decomposition and architecture is everything. Think about your problem domain. Code is just bullshit.
I'm dealing all day with developers incapable of thinking about anything else than "queries", "classes", "structs" and "early returns are bad". Semantics, ontologies, interfaces, abstraction boundaries, problem decomposition: ain't got no time for that.
We got structs to initialize, copy constructors to worry about and header definitions in bloody C++ to deal with! Oh look, you forgot to use Yoda-speak in your conditional, also you initialized two variables instead of one in this completely transient, temporary piece of code that is only run once every two months. Let's talk about this all morning! Because code hygiene is so extraordinarily important. You should definitely worry about each and every line of code. I hear it's "good for the brain".
Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain
#250I find his dismissal of iPad writing to be unconvincing. He talks about how we have calibrated our writing utensils over centuries to involve the proper amount of friction, and how that knowledge goes out the window when you're writing on an iPad. That may be true, but it's not like you can't just re-acclimate to the experience of writing on an iPad. Most people don't handwrite much, period, so if they start handwrit…
My issue with the iPad is that it just does not have the fine-fidelity or response time of real ink, and it's not something that never fails.
It's so frustrating to be so pregnant with an idea, to open ones iPad, and to find out the battery is low, Procreate isn't working, the Notes app is confusing to navigate, oh no you're writing but your palm has slid on the screen, etc.
I've spent a lot of time searching for a digital alternative, but IMO we're at least a decade away from digital handwriting being even close to on-par with paper, even ignoring friction and feel.