The Power of the Pen
In 2020, a team of Norwegian neuroscientists led by Audrey van der Meer published what would become one of the most-cited studies in cognitive neuroscience that year. Using high-density EEG to measure brain activity, they compared what happened when participants typed a word versus executed the same word in longhand. The difference was not subtle.
Handwriting activated a dramatically larger network of brain regions — including the sensorimotor cortex, the visual cortex, and areas associated with language and memory encoding. Typing, by contrast, produced activity that was sparse, narrow, and shallow. The brain treated typing as a translation task. It treated handwriting as something far more demanding: a full-body cognitive event.
Researchers found that handwriting produced more elaborate brain connectivity patterns than typing in a group of university students. The researchers linked this to the visual and movement feedback involved in forming letters by hand. Specifically, the act of longhand journaling or note-taking triggers the Reticular Activating System (RAS) in your brain. This system filters everything your brain needs to process and gives more importance to the things you are actively focusing on. Because handwriting is slower and requires more “effortful processing,” the brain flags the information as vital, effectively “armoring” your memory against age-related decline.
Don’t forget to read the last page of how you can cultivate and maintian this simple daily habit for best results.