How Writing Makes You Smarter
How Your Handwriting Connects to Your Brain Power
Why Does Writing Make Us Smarter?
Posted: 7/16/11 11:46 AM ET from the HUFFINGTON POST:
Have you ever wondered why many individuals don’t remember what they typed?
A new study that compared the different brain processes used for writing by hand and typing has found that there are cognitive benefits to putting a pen to paper.
Compared to using two hands to type out letters on a keyboard, writing with one hand uses more complex brain power.
Writing is more complicated because it integrates the following three brain processes:
- Visual: Seeing what is on the paper in front of you.
- Motor: Using your fine motor skills to actually put the pen to paper and form the letters to make the words.
- Cognitive: Remembering the shapes of the letters requires a different type of feedback from the brain.
Scientific American
In each study, however, those who wrote out their notes by hand had a stronger conceptual understanding and were more successful in applying and integrating the material than those who used took notes with their laptops.
The Psychological Benefits of Writing:
Why Richard Branson and Warren Buffett Write Regularly
Writing leads to better thinking + communicating
Laziness with words creates difficulty in describing feelings, sharing experiences, and communicating with others — especially true when it comes to persuasive messages.
Constantly having that “tip of the tongue” feeling, or being able to flesh out thoughts in your mind only to have them come stumbling out when you speak is very frustrating. It paints an unfair picture of you, and regular writing can keep this from happening.
In both emotional intelligence and in “hard sciences” like mathematics, writing has been shown to help people communicate highly complex ideas more effectively.
This is just my personal hunch, but I would say it is because writing helps eliminate that “it sounded good in my head” syndrome. It forces ideas to be laid out bare for the thinker to see, where it is much less likely that they will be jumbled up like they are in your head (hey, it’s crowded up there!).
