alt Hacker NewsWriting by hand is good for your brain
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I find his dismissal of iPad writing to be unconvincing. He talks about how we have calibrated our writing utensils over centuries to involve the proper amount of friction, and how that knowledge goes out the window when you're writing on an iPad.
That may be true, but it's not like you can't just re-acclimate to the experience of writing on an iPad. Most people don't handwrite much, period, so if they start handwriting again they're going to have to have an adjustment period either way.
I personally would think that the the benefits of digital writing (searchability, portability, infinite canvas, handwriting cleanup, digitization) would outweigh his friction quibbles. I personally don't find it to be tiring to write on an iPad, even without a screen protector (which some people use to increase friction). Also, e-paper devices tend to have more friction-y feedback, but he doesn't address this at all when dismissing all "gadgets" outright.
I've always been pretty skeptical of the data which says handwriting is better for learning than typing. Yes, handwriting causes more brain activity, but just because your brain is doing more does not mean it's doing the right thing!
For example, if I asked you to code FizzBuzz while riding a unicycle, I'm pretty sure you would show more brain activity than if you were just sitting at a desk. This does not mean it's an efficient way to program, nor that coding on a unicycle is better for learning.
I know lots of people do say they learn better when handwriting, just like some people say they learn better while going for a walk. This does not translate into a universal theory of learning.
Always found that writing stuff down helps me to remember things better, whether studying something, prepping for an exam, or in general. Didn't even matter if I didn't look at those notes again, it just got "stored" better.
Didn't know he is a lefty too! Fountain pens + lefty is a tough combo; we had to use fountain pens in the 1st grade and my wrist was always stained on the side. Agree with the rollerball angle, Pilot V5 is my go to now...
Wow, I can't believe Neal Stephenson of all people writes exclusively by hand. His books are tomes.
I totally buy that this is the case for him. I wonder how much is just what he's used to vs what's actually better. I feel like I write so slow compared to how fast I type that I struggle to put the words together on the paper. I can spurt out something with a keyboard 10x as fast, and then re-review and re-organize and all that.
I taught Gore Vidal how to use a computer in 1995. After a week worth of trying to use a PowerBook Duo, he went back to pen and paper. When asked how to improve my writing, he said use a pen and transcribe your favorite author. That I would eventually find the rhythm and style and make it my own.
> "don't use a gadget"
I agree with this but for a different reason than what the author gives.
When you write in a notebook you can see where what you are writing is within the notebook (e.g. ~1/3 of the way through, etc). That seems like a small thing but I think it really helps with anchoring the memory when writing, as well as with referencing it later. And of course you can also add all sorts of tabs and page markers to help even more.
The same is true when reading a book.
Having tried gel rollerball and fountain pens, I always end up going back to clutch pencils with soft leads.
The author dismisses all pencils because he has to press down hard to use them, but I don't press down any more than I would with a fountain pen.
Being able to erase is also a bonus. Not to mention the ASMR sound!
As a child I was diagnosed with a condition known as dysgraphia, which makes it difficult for me to make my hand write what my mind wants it to without straining myself. Typing doesn't seem to be as affected for me for some reason.
Sometimes I'll skip whole letters in a word without thinking and need to go back fill it in. Sometimes my baselines will drift as I write a sentence despite the paper _being lined_. Cursive is nearly impossible for me without extraordinary effort, despite me thinking it beautiful and wishing to improve my abilities there.
Dysgraphia for me makes it difficult to write for extended periods of time, and results in very poor handwriting. In fact, the reason I first got a computer as a little kid was so that I could type school assignments, and this was in elementary school in the 90s when everything was still handwritten where I grew up. I even typed my math homework with awkward notation in College (my professors hated me).
All of that said, I still find that I agree with the sentiment of this post, and I do keep notebook. It's laborious for me to write, but I still find that the intentionality and forethought that it demands produces (think about it, you're committing something immutable in the real world with ink and paper) something we're losing: deeper introspection. I know this might sound silly or pretentious like hipsters and vinyl records, but I think there's something in physical writing worth keeping despite its inconveniences.
Is there an online support group for people who have been on the keyboard so long that their penmanship looks more like klingon than english? Is there a way to correct this?
I always wrote by hand - probably because I spent over a decade in academia dealing with equations. I always have a pen in my pocket (without a pocket protector!)
About a decade ago I went back to writing with fountain pens after a nearly two decade hiatus. Oh, the joy!
But very sad he has no (real) tips on dealing with hand fatigue - other than to write in cursive. I always had hand fatigue for writing long stretches of prose - even back in my school days. A few years ago, I simply had to change how I grip the pen to reduce the pain, but I still can't write many pages without significant pain and the need for breaks. I can't imagine writing a whole novel that way.
Also, I wish he told us how he gets that handwritten stuff into digital form. Does he just mail handwritten stuff to the publishers?
In the past, I'd write twice: Once by hand, and then I'd type up anything worth saving to get it in digital form. A royal pain!
Then with Whisper and LLMs, life got a lot better. I would simply read what I'd handwritten, and get an LLM to clean it up. I only occasionally needed to fix it up after that.
Now LLMs are so good at it that I simply take a picture and send it to the LLM for transcribing.
I don't care how much people hate AI - for me it has quite literally reduced physical pain in my life.
Speaking of ancient practices coming back into favor: Are other people thinking meditation would be useful as they wait for their LLM to finish?
I've incorporated back writing by hand some time ago but find as models get smarter and I throw more at them they have also been taking longer.
In these moments even a notebook can register as something of a distraction. I already aim to keep my phone far away but I'm curious about trying to commit to meditating between prompts. Part of me feels like it would be a little silly. But maybe not.
Doodling in a notebook feels preferable in these moments but also feels like a context switch when the agent is done. Then again perhaps I need to just refine my process so notebook planning can feel like it is working more in parallel with the LLM rather than us blocking each other...
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 notebooks from de Kempen, but the point stands
I was cleaning my office a couple of days ago and found stacks upon stacks of paper. I've had a habit for over a decade of taking printer paper, folding it half length-wise, and scribbling notes on it as I work. I use it like a temporary scratch pad. It is an ingrained habit at this point, as soon as I have difficult focused work to do I reach for the paper and pen. Urgent site-wide outage? Start scribbling. Big feature decomposition? Start scribbling.
So I have this massive stack of notes that I glimpse at before shredding or whatever. Nothing of permanent value, nothing that I look at even 24 hours after it is written. But the sheer volume of the writing like that I do surprises me ever time I clean it out. It's like a novella sized stack of paper with server names, sketchy diagrams, peoples names, dates, commit hashes, debug messages. Lots and lots of lists. Things underlined, circled, stars, strike through, arrows, etc.
It is such an ingrained habit that its almost a compulsion, like someone is tying my hand behind my back if I don't have access. It is like my brain needs reassurance that some detail I just noticed won't be lost, at least it will be on the paper if I need it in the next 5 minutes. Like an extension of my short-term memory.
I have also kept a journal for 20+ years, mostly on paper. I often use a fountain pen (Lamy 2000) and notebooks with high-quality paper, but I am not super picky about it. I've used the cheapest school notebooks to the finest Japanese boutique papers. I'm a fan of the Pilot G2 and pens that have a similar feel. I'll also journal in Google Docs, Apple notes, or text docs in VS Code.
It is hard for me to disentangle the supposed benefits from the sheer weight of habit. It is just something I do, part of who I am.
I was filling notebooks too quickly and didn’t know what to do with them so I switched to a Kindle Scribe. It’s more expensive than a bunch of nice paper notebooks but it’s worked well for me. I export my handwritten notes for safe keeping and can have AI conversations with them as material. I also tried Kindle HD tablets, which worked just as well, but I got a lot of eye strain since I also work on a computer all day.
I've always love stationery. Over the years I've looked up pen reviews and tried out many different types including fountain pens.
I watched a video recently from someone, from memory the creator behind the youtube channel vsauce. Very briefly, he lost some notes to water. His words, thoughts and ideas vanished. His solution was switching to pencil.
I found the interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfY2JACiDGU
I'm addicted to people talking about pens and pencils. Adam Savage also has done a few videos on his favourite mechanical pencil.
Apparently Stephenson loves fountain pens and reluctantly gel pens. In general, those are water based inks and will wash away with water. There are one or two fountain pen inks designed to be more permanent and won't wash away with water.
Just something to keep in mind if you're currently writing or want to start.
I don't doubt the premise, but this sounds like another in a long series of Doing X May Delay Onset of Alzheimers articles.
Most of which includes the author's favorite mental task, food, or exercise.
I’ve recently gone back to writing by hand, at least for text that is of a reasonable length. The workflow that works for me is a third-party app on my iPad that converts my handwriting to digital text that I can then paste somewhere.
I’m sure, as the author says, it’s not as good as the real deal of writing with an actual pen, but I need it to be digital text eventually and don’t want to waste a lot of paper. I have found that I’m more creative and enjoy writing more.
I like writing by hand, but I don’t agree with the logic that it’s good because it recruits more areas of the brain. The less effective the medium is, the more of the brain it will recruit; chiseling on a stone tablet is probably a more complex task and it probably gives a more broad stimulus to the brain, but it does not mean it’s such a good idea. I would personally prefer to use a text editor for effective writing and then crochet for fine motor skill.
I don’t know about the brain but it’s good for the final results in my experience coding, writing and composing (orchestral music). The results are better and it takes less time if I start with pen and paper before “committing” to the computer. One of my favorite authors Jennifer Egan also writes fiction on paper (non-fiction articles still on the computer). More thoughts: https://www.phpied.com/starting-in-the-analog-domain/
That was a reccomendation from a philosophy professor I had in college. By the end of the semester, I didn't even have to review my notes.
I went back to school at 25, and that moment made me realize why school felt strangely more difficult, and then I remembered that we wrote down everything back then.
Perhaps there is a balance to be struck? I have thought long and hard about this, and I have settled on taking notes by typing on my laptop. The benefits are far too many: I do not have to carry my notes around to read them on the commute; I do not have to worry about losing them; I can rewrite them to my heart’s content without messing up the layout; and I feel that I type faster than I can write.
I do partly agree, though. When I am studying a new concept or reviewing old ones, I tend to scribble my thoughts down. I have not been able to replicate brainstorming while scribbling and doodling on an electronic device. The friction of my pen on paper seems to actually wire the pathways in my brain.
I literally can't think without a pen in my hand. Especially when I'm stuck, writing anything, or even better, drawing, activates my brain cells.
Typing forces you to think linearly, it feels constrained. That's not how the brain works.
- coding without an LLM is also good for your brain
- whose gonna tell it to em?
- dont worry, the long term studies are going to pick this up big time 5 years from now
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.
I'm a convert to the idea of just having a cup full of Bic Cristal (cheap, ubiquitous, reliable, replaceable, 76 year old design) ball point pens. Whenever I temporarily misplace one, I just grab another from the cup as I find them. When I'm cleaning up, they all go back to the cup. However, his point about how hard you have to push to write is making me reconsider. On the other hand, I'm also not writing 42 inch high stacks of manuscripts like him.
Surprised honestly we haven't had similar claims for typing on keyboard versus typing on screens or dictation.
> Pains me to say it, but rollerball gel pens are about as good as fountain pens on this front.
This. Don't use pencil or normal ballpoint bell with thick ink. Good gel pens are really good and not that much more expensive.
I've always struggled with writing by hand primarily because I tend to over-tense my grip on a pencil/pen even with an ergonomic grip attached. I learned to touch type pretty early on, so back in school before they let us bring laptops to class I would sometimes "type" notes and imagine the text of them in my head as I typed. This still helped with my retention compared to just listening and making mental connections between the concepts being introduced. Sometimes I would type out the full detailed notes and then by hand write out tiny personal shorthand bullet points that would help me recall the general point.
To this day, if I'm trying to learn something new, I will sometimes "type" on an invisible keyboard if I don't have a pen/paper or a smartphone I can write down specifics on. It doesn't work as well for things like memorizing phone numbers or like support ticket ID numbers, but I've found it helps me ingest knowledge even if it doesn't help as much with raw information the way writing by hand does.
Now all of that said, I have also found, like Neal Stephenson, that a high quality, low friction pen on notebook paper tends to feel the best and produce the least cramping. To this day, when I absolutely need to take handwritten notes, I use a Sharpie Rollerball 0.5 black pen with a small notebook, primarily for D&D (and other TTRPG) prep-work, so that I can recall specifics off the top of my head better while improvising.
today I posted a show HN that got insta-flagged by an AI detector. I had written the post then gone back and forth with claude, getting to a refined version I thought was much better. claude said it would hit way better with hn (me?).
after getting flagged I found the original, reposted, and it is actually so much better. not polished, not a masterpiece, I'm nowhere close to a professional writer. But it's like a human story with the marks of human care.
i fear my brain's getting smoothed down by reading all the generation and I need to drop the AI crutch for a while, at least for copy/writing.
> you’re going to get tired faster if your muscles have to exert more force
I like to handwrite, but my right hand gets tired very fast, especially as I got older. I write almost a shorthand style, and it is hard to read, but I value speed of writing things down versus the neatness or readability afterward. The author recommends fountain pen or gel rollerball pen, which I have both tried.
Does anyone have any other advice for preventing fatigue? I've also tried to learn to use my left hand, so I can switch hand when my hand gets tired. But even after months (or years?) of trying, I could never get it to write, or atleast to my satisfaction.
> when you write things down by hand you’re recruiting more of your brain, which is a good thing.
I completely agree! Perhaps it's simply for one reason: slowness.
Writing by hand slows down and the brain "breathes", calms down, and the waves of thought flow at their proper pace.
We aren't made to rush always: by slowing down, our brain also has time to better process thoughts and information, one at a time, and each one is given the "time it deserves."
Our brain works best when it's relaxed and has time to make all its connections.
Thinking is, first and foremost, an exercise in slowness.
(ps: I'm also left-handed, I wonder if this also affects the functioning of the brain...).
Doesn't work for everyone. I have essential tremor and my handwriting is abysmal.
I really like this talk[0] by Big Suze from Peep Show on how children learn better with physical writing than with typing.
This was my personal trick at the university. I was writing down all the notes during classes, even at the ugliest of my handwriting, but after classes insat down and rewrote the whole Notes in a better and clear way, so I was directly storing information in my brain.
I just needed to re-read the better notes 1 or 2 times and I could already recall the information, even at distance of time.
I write by hand to hack my productivity.
I buy nice notebooks and nice pens that are satisfying to use. I practice my handwriting, so the finished work is satisfying to look at. I think it gives me a bit of dopamine boost.
So I should buy a drawing tablet for my laptop so I can hand write my AI prompts? Got it!
(/s if not obvious!)
I'm curious about everyone's opinion on writing "by hand" with a stylus on tablets like the Remarkable, Kindle Scribe, iPad+Pencil, etc.
I like sketching and outlining with pencil and paper, but my handwritten notes are often illegible and disorganized. I know it's partly process and my poor penmanship, but digital surfaces compensate for this with built-in organization, searchability, and easier integration into projects and knowledge bases.
That is why I call good pens like my Fink [1] a thinking tool. I always wonder if it is nature or nurture, but I am sure that writing helps me to think in a straight line.
It's ironic that the article that caused him to write this post (https://substack.com/@justindeschamps/note/c-261265212?utm_s...) is written by AI.
I see this style of informational writing all over the place now.
> I use a lot of moleskine notebooks and Mead comp books, which I can buy in bulk online.
Moleskine notebooks are beautiful, but I always felt they were far too expensive. Would love to learn where they can be bought in bulk for a more reasonable price.
> Removing friction by using a hard stylus on glass will actually make the process more tiring.
Well since I've never written with a fountain pen, and the type of paper I write on with the fountain pen matters, I'm probably better off picking up the habit with an ipad or the like.
From the source paper:
> Existing literature indicates that connectivity patterns in these brain areas and at such frequencies are crucial for memory formation and for encoding new information and, therefore, are beneficial for learning
I would also be interested in whether the parts lighting up are actually contributing to learning the task at hand. The 2024 paper quoted above didn't mention a test for comprehension. The prior Stanford experiment also reasoned that writing helped with comprehension because students were forced to summarize.
I'd like to see an experiment that forces both groups, typing and writing, to summarize while their brains are scanned. I'd also like to see results from tests for comprehension for each group. I feel like that would make a stronger case for whether the benefit from writing is actually worth it.
I keep a handwritten journal and write in script. My penmanship isn't great, but it's good enough.
For exams in my intro programming classes, I allow students to bring a handwritten notes sheet if they wish. I get anything from a few sentences to a sheet so full of writing it almost looks gray. From what I can tell, students who really put effort into their notes sheet look at it less frequently but tend to score higher. This tracks with the studies I've seen on handwritten notes.
I still hand write a lot of code, and especially when starting out on projects or making more fundamental changes. I find it leads to better architectural solutions. My thinking has been that writing it out by hand can be slower so my brain is incentivized to think through the options and come up with more concise solutions. But maybe, as the article suggests, there are other small factors to hand-writing that lead to an improvement as well. I also use then go through the hand-written code to "execute" programs in my head and I think this also leads to higher-quality code. I encourage anyone that wants to be genuinely good at programming and software engineering to give it a try.
For last few months, whenever I am trying to understand a difficult problem or a concept or addressing a complex issue at work or in relationships, I try to write one page by hand. Often it brings clarity or surfaces the core confusion/misunderstanding. I don't know why that works but it has been really useful.
I'd like to go back to writing with pen and paper, but my bad handwriting bothers me. So any time I start writing something, part of my concentration is wasted on trying to make it look good.
I wrote this reply by hand and then used by keyboard which is connected with my mac mini using Bluetooth to type it here so you guys can see it.
"I write all my notes and letters by hand and I started writing them like 2 months ago when I was researching on something and found out the benefits of writing by hand. My post went mega viral on X (@ihteshamali) you will see it here on X and it got like 120k likes and people really loved it. And most people said they will now turn back to writing by hand which is nice."
I hated paper until I found a decent pen (frixion erasable, mediocre) and paper (Lemome grid notebook, very good). It's still harder than typing, but I've found nothing better for thinking through challenging problems.
As some have noted, if you like writing by hand for all of the benefits listed in this article but also want a digital copy for search, taking a photo and having an LLM read your handwriting works really well.
To streamline this process I wrote an iOS app that does exactly this. I used it to digitize my handwritten diaries, but it works for any handwritten paper.
I agree with the content of the post.
It does feel like a post stating things that are obvious, were someone not blinded by technology.
Curious if others have noticed a trend of going back to "old school" methods, once there is research etc around it. Seems like you can have just not used the new flashy thing.
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 trying to figure out the right notation or highlighter color for a line. Just mark them up and later it’ll make sense.
Edit: I think the broader point that some of you may be missing is that I’m not prescribing a particular form of notetaking. I’m saying that reading is made more rewarding with active engagement. How you best engage is up to you.