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Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread connectivity in brain

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Re: Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread connectivity in brain

#91

Post by arisAlexis »

Loughla wrote: post #71
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So no only were typists not touch typing, they couldn't see what they were typing. This is how I feel as a left hander while writing the old fashioned way. I can’t see what I’m writing so I get sloppy really quickly, and always need paper with lines. Not that this makes their methodology not totally bunk, of course.

Do you have any advice for helping a child who is left handed and sucks at penmanship? My youngest is left handed, and his writing is just trash. I have no idea how to help him outside of specific left handed writing tools (that I'm pretty sure don't help at all).

I'm left handed and all my life people need to decode painfully what I'm writing. Most lefties write like trash that's reality

Re: Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread connectivity in brain

#92

Post by hx8 »

Aardwolf wrote: post #45

Neither handwriting nor typewriting existed while the brain evolved. Why does the more modern method have to be the bad one again?

Genes that promote improved written communications could have been selected for even if you use cuneiform as the starting timeframe you are considering. Of course that isn't the real starting time. Cave paintings are 40k years old. How long ago did we begin drawing in the dirt with sticks?

Re: Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread connectivity in brain

#93

Post by jwrallie »

danielbln wrote: post #56
hk1337 wrote: post #10

I feel like this has been said before quite a bit but a lot of people always make excuses about how they’re the exception.

Or not everyone is the same (even ignoring the.. interesting stud design of the paper that excluded touch typists). When I would learn vocabulary in school for a secondary language, the teacher would always state how this is best done by writing everything by hand. I never ever saw observed that benefit and always felt that to be true for me. So I might be delusional, or there is something else at play here.

That’s true, but not everything is about recall.

Sometimes you just want to record the information quickly in a searchable way and forget about it until the next time you need it.

Not being able to recall something you do not want to might be a feature, and so is increasing the machine ability to recall it (as opposed to yours). Grepping text is always going to be more efficient than scanned handwritten paper notes.

Re: Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread connectivity in brain

#94

Post by pclmulqdq »

arisAlexis wrote: post #91
Loughla wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any advice for helping a child who is left handed and sucks at penmanship? My youngest is left handed, and his writing is just trash. I have no idea how to help him outside of specific left handed writing tools (that I'm pretty sure don't help at all).

I'm left handed and all my life people need to decode painfully what I'm writing. Most lefties write like trash that's reality

Most people write like trash, but I am also left handed and haven't noticed a correlation between handedness and handwriting. For what it's worth, I have very good penmanship.

Re: Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread connectivity in brain

#95

Post by djtriptych »

I do feel there's a leap in the ability to remain in flow while typing once you're past a certain (high) level of proficiency. Looking at what you're typing really interrupts flow for me, at least when writing prose.

If I have a lot of writing to do, I almost always write longer passages with my eyes either closed or gazing at something other than the screen. When my thought is complete I open my eyes and do a few edits on whatever typos made it through.

I also do almost all of my writing in vim, so I never have to context switch between mouse and keyboard.

Re: Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread connectivity in brain

#96

Post by AceyMan »

squigz wrote: post #8
dcow wrote: post #6

Could a factor be that most people primarily typewrite now so it’s second nature muscle memory but the handwriting task requires just a little extra effort? I didn't see preexisting disposition factored in at all, so I’m curious.

I think it's actually the opposite - most people can't touch type, so they spend more time and concentration trying to type, which means less focus on the actual content. I would think that handwriting is more muscle memory for most people, thus they can focus more on what they're writing, making connections to it, etc.

> most people can't touch type,

While, statistically, that may be strictly true across the population, I suspect, in the main, people who are in an educational environment where note taking is a requirement can touch type.

I don't recall meeting anyone in the modern office—irrespective of department or title—in the last 25 years who can't touch type.

Re: Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread connectivity in brain

#97

Post by Grimblewald »

Studies like this are why I lost my respect for the field, and left it a long time ago. I have not since regained my respect for psychology as a general field. Things like this are published all too frequently.

It is demonstrated that playing piano has positive effects on neural development, a task largely analogous to typing. Learning / honing any novel skill will have that effect. If you are pushing your the limits of your knowledge or skill-set and are improving, then your brain has to be adapting to things.

If one group is simply typing characters, one at a time, using one finger, of course nothing is going on in the brain. What aspect of the brain at that point is begin challenged? If anything I'd expect this task to result in a reduction of connectivity.

Re: Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread connectivity in brain

#98

Post by dgan »

jodrellblank wrote: post #41
dgan wrote: post #5

Linking this thread, because it already crossed my mind so many times https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29863108

Since that thread, did you try tablets and eInk/ePaper devices?

Tablet, yes.

As for reading, definitely better to read in the train than a phone screen. As for writing, didn't try

Re: Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread connectivity in brain

#99

Post by throw2836384 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #77
Loughla wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any advice for helping a child who is left handed and sucks at penmanship? My youngest is left handed, and his writing is just trash. I have no idea how to help him outside of specific left handed writing tools (that I'm pretty sure don't help at all).

Learn to write upside down, then turn the paper upside down and write from right to left.

Learn Chinese.

It's traditionally written right-to-left, top-to-bottom.

Re: Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread connectivity in brain

#100

Post by [deleted] »

Forge36 wrote: post #46
blargey wrote: post #32

"Allowing the use of (the fingers of) both hands would cause many unforeseen effects on the brain, which would make it hard to interpret the results" so all participants had to "type using the right index finger [only]". How does one rule out the relevance of those "unforeseen effects" when claiming to compare typing in general vs handwriting in general? The paper only contains that one line about the matter, in the…

I think it gets worse > To prevent artifacts produced by head and eye movements caused by shifting gaze between the screen and the keyboard, typed words did not appear on the screen while the participant was typewriting. So no only were typists not touch typing, they couldn't see what they were typing. Too many variables are changed between the two tests. A) writers can see whole words vs no visual feedback B) writer…

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