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Writing by hand is good for your brain

nealstephenson.substack.com

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Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#381

Post by NickDouglas »

Diogenesian wrote: post #74
postalcoder wrote: post #20

A corollary to this is, when reading books, mark them up! Don’t be precious with them. Destroy the spine so it’s easier to read, fold pages, write the important stuff inside the front cover of the book. Cross out stuff you disagree with, draw a big circles around the stuff that resonates. Not only does it make consumption a lot more engaging, it makes a revisit of that book extremely rewarding. Don’t get caught up tr…

I buy used books: it sucks to see someone else's notes scribbled all over the page. It's like a really annoying guy whispering at you with vapid explanations while you're trying to pay attention to a lecture. "Cross out stuff you disagree with" actually makes me sick. It also seems useless for understanding and retention, since highlighting is almost always misleading and margin notes are almost always empty. If you…

Suit yourself, my family ended up with two used copies of "The Hobbit" and we kept the one that some kid had marked up.

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#382

Post by beej71 »

dv35z wrote: post #305
kettlez wrote: post #43

I've done Julia Cameron's "morning pages" exercise off and on over the years, write three full pages of flow of consciousness by hand first thing in the morning, and it's shocking how good it is for unlocking ideas and working through problems when done consistently.

Totally agree. To others: The book is called "The Artists Way", and is an excellent guide to become more creative and expressive.

Another recommendation for this.

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#383

Post by randomImmigrant »

What the research shows and what Stephenson is alluding to also points to the way the design of digital technology has flattened human-computer interaction by prioritizing speed.

It is not impossible to design digital products that achieve the same balance of fountain pen on paper. But having used the iPad for journaling with a good toothed screen protector, I think we are still far from it. Even with the barrel rolling and pressure sensitivity, an actual pen just writers so much more expressively.

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#384

Post by pbhjpbhj »

superloika wrote: post #373
rectang wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Write by hand and mark up your books" is excellent advice... that I no longer follow. Marking up books didn't come naturally to me, but I did it for a while. Paper books are just decaying bundles of plant fiber — and the ideas within them are likewise ephemeral. The illusion of permanence must be confronted and reckoned with. But for the last 15-20 years, I have been taking notes in text files that are saved to vers…

> Paper books are just decaying bundles of plant fiber — and the ideas within them are likewise ephemeral. We still have 1000 year old codex in quite good conditions. A paper book will still be readable 500 and 1000 years into the future, if properly stored. A digital file will be effectively lost in decades, if not mere years.

Most likely though is your kids, or a company paid for from your estate, will chuck it all in a skip (dumpster) and it will be dumped somewhere to rot, or be burnt to make electricity.

Millennia old codices are extremely rare, and they've survived either by dumb luck or because they were treasured.

Maybe OP is a famed thinker, whose disciples will carefully preserve their notes; or their house is in a cave that will be at sealed in a landslide; or they will die in a peat bog clutching their notes to their pallid breast as the life force seeps from their body, submerging them in preserving ooze...

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#385

Post by chairmansteve »

SoftTalker wrote: post #170
thequux wrote: post #61

Don't underestimate the importance of a pen, ink, and paper you like. I found my pen a decade ago: Lamy Studio, in British Racing Green, with a medium nib. I found my ink not long after, from J Herbin's collection. It wasn't until I got a nice notebook from Leuchtturm 1917, though, that the ensemble came together and I started looking for excuses to get my kit out and write things down. Since then, I've moved onto no…

A nice pen is... nice. But it's as easy to fall into geeking out about pens and paper as it is keyboards, knives and other kitchen utensils, tools, etc. In most cases, any pen is as good as any other. Or just find a cheap mass produced pen that feels good in your hand. They are plentiful. Then buy a stock of them. I actually like using pencils, with a thick lead because I tend to have a pretty heavy hand when writing…

Pencil with soft lead works perfectly for me.

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#386

Post by ekelsen »

Diogenesian wrote: post #74
postalcoder wrote: post #20

A corollary to this is, when reading books, mark them up! Don’t be precious with them. Destroy the spine so it’s easier to read, fold pages, write the important stuff inside the front cover of the book. Cross out stuff you disagree with, draw a big circles around the stuff that resonates. Not only does it make consumption a lot more engaging, it makes a revisit of that book extremely rewarding. Don’t get caught up tr…

I buy used books: it sucks to see someone else's notes scribbled all over the page. It's like a really annoying guy whispering at you with vapid explanations while you're trying to pay attention to a lecture. "Cross out stuff you disagree with" actually makes me sick. It also seems useless for understanding and retention, since highlighting is almost always misleading and margin notes are almost always empty. If you…

Then don't buy used books? They are _used_. If you want a new book, buy a new book?

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#387

Post by msum »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #275
gghackernewsgg wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how it was explained to me by a tutor: handwriting is better for learning because it's slower. The need for brevity forces you to mentally engage the material in ways that are more conducive to understanding and recall. If you can replicate that mental engagement while typing, you'd probably get similar results. This makes a lot of sense to me in light of what we know about how learning happens. I have never…

I've heard this theory too—but I feel it doesn't match how we do anything else in life. For example, you could make typing slow too by forcing people to type with two fingers, or use a really tiny keyboard. Are touch typists worse at learning? This doesn't really refute the theory—maybe touch typing is worse—but it doesn't match my logical intuition at all.

[dead]

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#389

Post by ekelsen »

Diogenesian wrote: post #252
john_strinlai wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it was funny seeing this right below the comment saying " I _love_ buying a used book and finding a previous reader's notes in the margins. It's the greatest. ". different strokes. if you want to ensure you don't get sick from a line being crossed out, buy new.

This is so condescending. The reason I buy used is that the overwhelming majority of books are out of print and not available digitally. Which makes the vandalism especially egregious!

It was extremely common back in the 1500/1600s, when books were far more rare and valuable to write in them. Almost every copy of these truly old books has something written in them, often by multiple people as the owners changed. That's part of the history of the book.
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