For older people, taking handwritten notes may be the answer to those senior moments.

The governor of New Jersey agrees. He recently signed into law a requirement that children learn cursive writing again at school. In Norway however some schools are moving to become all digital.

We increasingly see classrooms full of PC’s and iPads. Students taking their notes on a keyboard. When I was trying to revise for examinations I used to write out what I was trying to put into my brain. I still use cursive or joined up writing. It seems that I may have been correct.

Different Modes of Note Taking

Within higher education there has been a debate about the value of using PC’s and iPads in class to take notes. The bulk of the arguments were about the way PC’s distracted students. They would try to multi-task and be surfing the web or using their social media. Studies are now asking a more basic question. We want to learn and encode information to our memories. Which is better- using a keyboard or making handwritten notes? These studies have encompassed young children learning to read all the way to undergraduate students.

A University Classroom Study.

Students were asked to watch five TED talks on subjects with which they were not familiar. They were told to take notes as they normally would in class. They were pre-selected so that half would normally use a pencil and paper and half a keyboard. After a distraction task, taking half an hour, they were tested. They were asked to recall both factual information and conceptual ideas. Typical questions might be;

Conceptual: “How do Japan and Sweden differ in their approaches to inequality in their societies?”

The first finding was in the nature of the notes taken. Most people using a keyboard took a transcript of the presentation. They captured the majority of the words. Note takers with a pen synthesized the ideas and took far fewer notes. The test was repeated asking students with keyboards not to take verbatim tests. The vast majority could not stop themselves.

The results in terms of capturing the talks were different. Both groups scored similarly on the factual information. The Pen and Paper note takers recalled the conceptual ideas within the papers far better.

Some would argue that the keyboard method would allow for the revisiting of the information. This was tested. Another group of students performed the same tasks. They were told they would be retested in a week. Prior to that retest half of each group were allowed to revisit their notes. The results came out virtually the same. Verbatim notes even when reread did not help. The students could not outperform their note taking colleagues on conceptual questions.

In the early learning setting children who learned to read and write with cursive handwriting did better. They scored higher on their learning and memory of the words and letters they were being taught. There was something in the way that handwritten notes worked compared to using a keyboard and screen. That is why New Jersey and other states are re-introducing cursive writing, which was dropped from most curricula in 2010.

Brain Scans

Handwriting is more challenging and stimulating to the brain than is typing. Children find it harder for a reason. Scanning people’s brains can give an insight. It seems that typing activates very different parts of the brain. More than that, typing activates less of the brain. Cursive handwriting requires us to integrate visual and tactile feedback. The feel that we get when the pen touches the paper. It requires more than just hand-eye co-ordination. We need to engage fine motor skills. The brain engages the sensorimotor cortex, visual areas, and language centres more extensively. Typing predominantly activates motor regions associated with repetitive finger movements and visual processing. There is less direct engagement of areas associated with memory and language.

Research on the use of an electronic stylus provides an interesting insight. The effect of pen and paper can be reproduced much better if the surface provides feedback. With accentuators within the pad the pen can be made to resist in a way that mimics paper. The brain scans are different. Writing by hand, even with such a stylus, integrates activity from many parts of the brain. This improves attention and increases what is understood and memorized.

The Ageing Brain and Handwriting.

Moments of memory loss are common at all ages. They do seem to increase with age. There are two main theories of why this happens. One argues that the memory “fills up” with age. Older people have more to store and so find it more difficult to add new information to memory. The alternative is that there is a decline during “encoding”. Older people play less attention, especially to things that are less important to them. Information is not committed to memory.

Writing by hand activates more of the brain. It requires the brain to integrate many more operations and parts. It seems it may improve encoding.

Use it or Lose It.

Should then older people make notes on pencil and paper more often? Many things that use to be written are now typed. Few people write letters anymore. Most communication is digital. Smart phones mean that even shopping lists are now typed. There is lots of evidence that the brain deemphasises activities that are not used. We all use technology for cognitive “ offloading”. That means less work for our brain or that we can think of something else. AI will make this even easier. Where do we stop? Is an AI produced synthesis of a Zoom call helping us to understand?

We may stop writing notes and shopping lists. Do we then do Suduko or cross words to keep our brains active? Research suggests that such brain exercises need to be demanding. We need to learn a language or to play a musical instrument. It seems that writing with a paper and pencil does activate the brain. Perhaps we should brush up on our handwriting as we age? Certainly my handwriting could do with work!