Handwriting: Why the Pen is Mightier Than the Keyboard?

Dylan is a 35-year old blogger, who is always hooked to Apple devices from dawn till dusk. Of late, he feels anxious as he frequently receives calls from his bank about the difference in his signature. Dylan is surprised to know the disparity in each signature he made on different cheques. The bank official has finally called Dylan to the premises to show “different strokes” on the cheques.

During his moments of respite, Dylan comes to know that he has completely lost control over his fingers when he holds a pen or pencil. This is the result of Dylan’s over-reliance on digital devices he uses day in, day out.

With the rise of a digital age, people have begun to use (or overuse) smart gadgets. Like Dylan, there are millions of users, who face this challenge of writing flawlessly on paper.

A handwriting expert nicely puts the issue as he says, “Digital devices have killed our ability to use pen or pencil. Surprisingly, the solution lies in the problem itself. You can use iPad Pro and Apple Pencil to improve your calligraphic skills and master the art of beautiful handwriting.”

The Digital Pen is mightier than the Keyboard

If you want to bring back that skill of legible handwriting, this article works as a piece of advice. The challenge is to stay abreast with the latest without losing a thread connected with the past. Once addicted to smart devices, people would hardly accept any retrogressive change and go back to the old school of writing on paper with a pen. Here, technology functions as a bridge between the past and the present.

Why should you revive the art of handwriting?

As happens with Dylan, this forgotten habit of using pen and paper can put you in the soup when you have to sign important documents, cheque, or attend meetings with a physical notepad.

Cognitive Abilities

Writing about the importance of handwriting, David Pierce says, “Some schools don’t even teach cursive anymore. Yet studies have repeatedly shown that writing by hand can help you process and remember information far better than typing. A 2014 study found that when students typed notes, they tended to just transcribe whatever the professor said, while those working with pen and paper were mentally summarizing and paraphrasing, which led to better test scores.”

The research highlights that kids taking notes on laptops and tablets “have performed worse on conceptual questions than students who took notes longhand.”

Moreover, the study also reveals that students, who use digital devices for note taking are easily distracted. On the other hand, students using pen and paper to take notes have developed multitasking skill and show better concentration.

Laptop note takers tend to “transcribe lectures verbatim” as they cannot process information and reframe it in their own words. Slowly and gradually, there is a detrimental effect on their cognitive abilities.

Your Handwriting Reveals Your Personality

“The way you dot your “i’s” and cross your “t’s” could reveal more than 5,000 different personality traits.”

Your handwriting analysis can reveal your personality. For example, if you are sociable, you would prefer large letters to small ones. And shy and introverted like to write in small letters. Happy with average-sized letters? Then you have a strong ability to focus and concentrate.

Before starting any personality development course, work on your handwriting to leave a remarkable impression.

New tools, old way: Digital pen is an agent of change

Since keyboards and digital devices have become our left and right hand, it is impossible to ditch them and go back to pen and paper. A practical solution, however, is to use iPad Pro and Apple Pencil. With the two Apple products, you can start scribbling texts and letters.

This practice of writing with a digital pen will not only improve your handwriting but also help you develop a penchant towards note taking – whether you are a freelancer or a working professional.

For students, who have not learned cursive handwriting in schools (many schools have adopted smartboard classrooms, where students use tablets or laptops), they can use iPad Pro and Apple Pencil to take notes regularly. To practice cursive writing, they can use calligraphy apps on their iOS devices.

Another way is to use notepad and scan your scrawling with Scanner Pro. You can download Scanner Pro on your iPhone or iPad, and scan your writings from the notepad. Next, you can upload your scanned documents on cloud services like iCloud, Google Drive, or Dropbox. You can easily access your documents from your iOS devices. With optical character recognition, apps like Google Drive and Evernote can convert your scribblings into searchable text.

Summing up…

After finding relatively shallow cognitive processing among students, many schools are going back to writing instead of typing. From the attic of artists, iPad Pro and Apple Pencil are moving to the educational institutes. For written communication, good handwriting is a must. Users need to strike a perfect balance between papers and smart screens as neither can beat each other.

Article contributed by Jignesh Padhiyar from IGeeksBlog.

Original post: Handwriting: Why the Pen is Mightier Than the Keyboard?

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