07/23/2026
So interesting! I've always maintained that letter writing, which was an important part of my growing up years, fostered a processing of information about our lives that was vital to our well being. The thought process required and the physical act of writing is a clearinghouse of life events that helps to center ourselves. I also personally have found that I second guess my spelling way more when writing with a computer. How about you?
A Norwegian neuroscientist named Audrey van der Meer has spent nearly two decades studying a simple question:
Does writing by hand change the way the brain works?
Her research suggests it does.
In a 2024 study published in Frontiers in Psychology, van der Meer and her team recruited 36 university students and fitted each of them with EEG caps containing 256 sensors to record brain activity in real time.
The experiment was simple.
Words appeared on a screen one at a time.
Sometimes the students wrote the words by hand using a digital pen.
Other times, they typed the exact same words on a keyboard.
The researchers then examined how different parts of the brain communicated during each task.
When participants wrote by hand, brain regions involved in movement, vision, memory, and sensory processing became active together, creating widespread patterns of neural communication.
When they typed the same words, those patterns were noticeably less extensive.
Same students.
Same words.
Two very different patterns of brain activity.
Researchers believe the difference comes from the complexity of handwriting itself.
Writing by hand isn’t a single repeated movement. Every letter requires a unique combination of fine motor control, visual guidance, spatial awareness, and continuous feedback between the eyes, fingers, wrist, and brain. With each stroke, the brain is solving a new motor problem while simultaneously processing language.
Typing simplifies much of that process.
Whether you’re pressing an A, M, or T, the movement is largely the same—a finger pressing a key. The task still requires attention and language processing, but it involves fewer unique motor demands than forming each letter by hand.
Van der Meer has also suggested that physically learning to write letters may help children develop stronger letter recognition because they experience the shapes through movement rather than simply tapping keys on a screen.
Her findings echo research published years earlier by Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer, who compared students taking lecture notes by hand with those using laptops.
The laptop users wrote down far more words.
But the handwriting group consistently performed better on questions that measured understanding rather than simple recall.
The reason was surprisingly straightforward.
Students writing by hand couldn’t keep up with every spoken word, so they had to listen, decide what was important, and summarize ideas in their own language.
That process wasn’t just note-taking.
It was learning.
The research doesn’t suggest people should stop using keyboards.
Typing is faster, more efficient, and essential in modern life.
But when the goal is to understand, remember, or think more deeply about information, putting pen to paper may engage the brain in ways that keyboards simply don’t.
Sometimes the oldest technology still teaches the newest lessons.
