The Pen is Mightier than the Phone: A Case for Writing Things Out
This article, I believe, has a great deal of insight regarding writing things via hand through pen and paper versus writing things down on electronic devices, like phones and computers.
It covers many of the same reasons why I prefer to write original drafts of stories and poems on a notebook rather than on my computer.
“We’re more likely to find an electronic device, open our favorite word processor, and fiddle with a margin and font size before committing a single word to the page,” Martin wrote in an email. “Automatic spellcheck and word correction can slow the process further and cause you to lose your train of thought.”
By committing your thought to paper, you’re also doing more to lock it into place. Virginia Berninger, professor of educational psychology at the University of Washington, has the brain scans to prove it. Berninger told the Wall Street Journal in Oct. 2010 that as your hand executes each stroke of each letter, it activates a much larger portion of the brain’s thinking, language, and “working memory” regions than typing, which whisks your attention along at a more letters-and-words pace.
If you have the time, you ought to take a look at this article. Maybe it will inspire you to try writing your next piece in longhand rather than on the keyboard.
