Despite the development of technology and its notable importance in our lives, it is not always able to bring benefits. A new study published in Frontiers in Psychology and led by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology also indicated by the acronym Ntnu, revealed that taking notes the old fashioned way and therefore by hand allows you to learn much better.
Audrey van der Meer, professor of neuropsychology at NTNU, spoke about the study, revealing that measuring the brain activity of people who write by hand allowed them to observe the formation of many more connections in the brain compared to when a computer is used to write.
The discovery of scholars
The scholars then discovered that writing by hand seems to activate a greater number of brain cells. And therefore consequently the learning capacity would also appear to be greater. Van der Meer continued his intervention on the issue by stating that in people who write by hand it was possible to observe greater nervous activity in specific parts of the brain. And precisely in the parts “which deal with memory and the interpretation of new information”.
He also wanted to clarify that “This activity plays a key role in the learning process“. According to experts, it is therefore very important, for example, that children learn to write by hand from an early age, i.e. from the first year of school. Only in this way will they be able to form neural networks capable of creating the best basis for learning.
When we write by hand, we use more senses than when we use a keyboard. On a keyboard, we repeat the same simple finger movements regardless of the character we want to type. Children who first learn to write using keyboards often have difficulty distinguishing between letters that are mirror images of each other, such as ‘ b’ and ‘d’. They have not physically experienced what it feels like to form these letters.
Professor Ruud van der Weel