from Hacker News

Ask: Do you still find any benefits in using handwriting?

by airframeng on 8/17/15, 2:35 PM with 60 comments

• by piqufoh on 8/17/15, 3:20 PM

  Meetings! I always make sure I have a pen/pencil and notebook/piece of paper when I show up for an in-person meeting.

  Maybe it's just me, but if I'm trying to explain an idea to someone and they're busy tapping away at their keyboard it really bugs me. Are they making notes on what I'm saying? Or are they checking in on HN? Ditto for the rare occasion when I'm in a dull meeting with a laptop - it's really difficult for me not to browse my inbox should a message show up, and then I think about a reply, and then I'm lost...

  I find physical handwritten notes in a meeting is less distracting for both the speaker and the listener.

• by Brajeshwar on 8/17/15, 3:09 PM

  Whenever I see someone's good handwriting, I carry an instant good impression for the person. Throughout my school days, me and my friends used to compete how we can control our handwriting - trying out many wild ways - slants, curls, curves, et al ad we loved it. It was never academic but felt really good and satisfying. We've also seen other schools whose students had really good handwriting. Love them, appreciated them and we would secretly try to be better than them.

  I guess that paid off in the long run. No many people really give much importance to handwriting, more so these days but I feel nice writing and still try to write as much as I can (always have few notebooks with me at all times + a bunch of pens and pencils). Besides the appreciations I usually get, I like the fact that people admire that I dedicate to writing too besides my involvement with technology and that I stayed in touch with the art of writing.

  I'm trying to inculcate a similar habit with my kid - write beautiful, and master the intricacies of handwriting - it is lovely, sweet, sophisticated, classical and clean.

  :-)

• by todd8 on 8/17/15, 3:30 PM

  I've taken notes in many math, engineering, and computer science classes, and after that I've attended many design meetings, schedule meetings, and brain storming sessions. In these settings typing doesn't work well and there is a distinct advantage in having good diagramming and math notation skills.

  I find typing better for prose and prefer to program in a text editor.

  I've had this discussion several times with the people running my children's schools (grade levels between 6 and 12). They have always been big on pushing technology in the schools and moving away from simple pen/pencil and paper.

  My kids grew up with computers, iPads, and cell phones and so did virtually every other kid in these upper end schools. They didn't need to be pushed to use keyboards and didn't need instruction in typing, my daughter has typed faster than I can for years. But the schools, and many parents, were obsessed with the idea of being modern. I tried to explain that low resolution touch screens were inappropriate for taking math notes past simple fractions, but of course, I couldn't change their minds.

  I felt the use of technology in the schools often hindered instruction and learning. Naturally, there is a place for it and I was happy that my senior was required to prepare her math projects using Sagemath and LaTeX.

• by zamalek on 8/17/15, 3:02 PM

  I'm going to be incredibly unscientific here.

  I think it depends on how well a person is able to translate intelligence into writing. Taking myself as an example: I am extremely bad at the written form - my intelligence significantly drops as soon as pen touches paper. However, I don't suffer this penalty with typing. It might have something to do with this:

  > Some say that because we write slower than we type, it allows for deeper thinking as opposed to faster thinking

  I would say that I'm a subconscious thinker, I draw conclusions and don't always know why. I would rather rephrase that to:

  > Some say that because we write slower than we type, it allows for deeper thinking as opposed to fluid thinking

  Handwriting is better for deep thinkers, typing is better for fluid thinkers. To each his own. Maybe where you are going with this is that people aren't handwriting when they should be: I could really agree with that.

• by bborud on 8/17/15, 2:51 PM

  I have an easier time remembering things I've written down.

  Actually, that's not entirely correct: I remember more of the tohughts I had when writing something down. Which might actually be more important. (Except when those thoughts are "this is boring, please kill me")

• by tudorw on 8/17/15, 3:04 PM

  when I write on paper I can instantaneously use scale, spacing, font size, font style, text orientation, illustration, flow charts and more to impart a lot more information into a space than I can do just bashing out on a keyboard, I love computers, I love paper too, I think a union is the best of both worlds but a portable paper equivalent is still a way off.

• by roneesh on 8/17/15, 2:56 PM

  We obviously type more than we write now, but I've always found the implicit suggestion of abandoning writing, or engaging in the hypothetical of having to pick only one, a bit of a pointless discussion. While it's not an exact analogy, I would say it's like walking and swimming. Both can get you somewhere, but just because we do one a lot more than the other doesn't mean we don't need both.

• by strictnein on 8/17/15, 3:25 PM

  I keep a small notepad and pen next to my keyboard. I write notes on it, but I rarely review them. The act of simply writing notes helps me remember them.

  On a related note, BIC is actually doing PSA style radio ads and has a campaign website to "save handwriting": http://bicfightforyourwrite.com/

• by twothamendment on 8/17/15, 3:29 PM

  Handwriting can have huge benefits. The NSA can't read it the instant you write it - in fact I don't think anyone can read mine except for me. I don't even need an key or passphrase to protect it.

• by japhyr on 8/17/15, 3:25 PM

  I think much more clearly when writing on paper than when typing at a keyboard. I can get into a mindset, and the pen and paper don't ever distract from my frame of mind. If I try to think through something at the keyboard, I often drift and my attention ends up on the machine itself.

  I have no idea if this is by nature of the medium, or because I grew up in the 70's and 80's without consistent computer access until I was in my early teens. I also lived in a tent for a year, and wrote in a journal every night; I think that has influenced my writing mindset significantly.

  So, if I'm very clear about what I want to write, I can use a keyboard. But if I'm still sorting through some ideas I'll grab a pen and paper. I even draft important emails with a pen and paper. Usually drafting a quick sketch or outline is enough, and I do the wordsmithing at the keyboard. Whenever I'm at a loss for words, though, I push the computer aside and sit quietly with a pen and paper for a little bit.

• by mmorris on 8/17/15, 3:38 PM

  Like others have mentioned, I still do handwriting in a notebook, mainly because it's easier to sketch a diagram with a pen and paper than it is to do it digitally.

  Pros of handwriting/pen+paper:

      - Extremely high "resolution" (can fit a lot of information in a small space)
      - Flexibility
      - Direct input: tools rarely "get in the way"
  

  Cons of handwriting/pen + paper:

      - Editing is cumbersome
      - Storage/retrieval is annoying (no search!)
      - Sharing/collaboration is not as good as digital
  

  I'm still dreaming of something like the Microsoft Courier Concept [0]. We've gotten a lot closer since the concept came out (e.g., the MS Surface), but I think we're still not quite at the point where a digital notebook can feel just like paper + pen.

  [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmIgNfp-MdI

• by hkon on 8/17/15, 3:04 PM

  The constant need for combining text with small sketches makes pen and paper a useful tool. Less to do with handwriting, more with the flexibility pen and paper offers.

  Write my diary by hand. Makes it pretty much unhackable and it's a good way to start the day. Habit I guess.

• by kbd on 8/17/15, 2:55 PM

  > Some say that because we write slower than we type, it allows for deeper thinking as opposed to faster thinking, which could be beneficial.

  My understanding is that studies showing this apply primarily to note taking, like in a class. When people take notes by typing they tend to copy what is said verbatim, whereas writing notes forces people to summarize and therefore internalize more of the information.

  As for me, my handwriting is atrocious, I use it so rarely, and it's so much slower than typing for me that I get frustrated whenever I write things.

  > because it's harder to edit one is more careful while writing...

  Typing allows for easier editing and refinement, so I think it wins out overall :)

• by Amanjeev on 8/17/15, 3:10 PM

  Warning: All of below is anecdotal and non-scientific.

  I think the benefits depend on what you are trying to achieve. I do some amateur poetry in two languages - English and Hindi+Urdu. In both cases, I have found that I lose my chain of thought if I am typing on computers (tried ipad, iphone also) than writing on a paper. The stream of thought is just much more fluid and connections are easier to capture while writing on paper. It could be that I wrote more as a child/teen than typed. There is something about mistakes on paper, you crossing them out by running a line through them. You do not lose what you wrote, but you know thats not what you wanted. So, it affirms where you want to go as well as what you do not want to write. I think the ability to edit and remove what was previously written makes me lose the chain of thoughts in this case and I have to start afresh.

  I have also seen that when I write letters to people in the family and friends, I am generally more content in what I have written, even if something is scribbled or there are mistakes in it. Of course, that is personal and thus the value for me and the people who I send them to (well, I can hope).

  Lastly, I write all my task list (esp. the big ones). I do not type them, not on my phone, not on my computer. A quick shopping list is a different thing but the goal-list is something on a paper for me or it never feels concrete.

• by CocaKoala on 8/17/15, 3:09 PM

  All through high school and most of college, I took notes on my laptop. Once I got into grad school, I gave that up and started taking notes in a notebook by hand; I was the only person in the CS department who took notes by hand, but it helped me to recall information, made it easier to review my notes later, and gave me the freedom to draw whatever diagrams I needed.

  Also, writing notes on post-it notes or on a whiteboard are basically what makes completing any project that takes longer than a day possible for me.

• by furyofantares on 8/17/15, 3:41 PM

  If I'm trying to pay attention to something I'll use a notepad to jot down a tiny note about whatever happens to pop into my head so I can get back to paying attention without my wandering thoughts distracting me. People probably expect I'm writing down something related to the conversation/meeting but often it is unrelated, it's just a trick to keep my mind from exploring while I want to stay focused -- I often don't look at what I wrote down afterwards. I learned this trick from a therapist.

  I also journal, but the benefit of handwriting there is the opposite of what you've described -- I think harder when typing because I exercise the ability to edit, which is counterproductive to my goals when journaling. I journal to gain an understanding of what's happening in my head, not to produce a work of lasting value, so just writing down what comes to mind instead of spending a bunch of effort trying to perfect my thoughts does a better job of capturing this.

  Finally, I also use a notepad when trying to think through a particularly sticky problem. The free form nature is liberating and being able to be physically separated from a computer is useful in cases where I badly want to dive right into implementing the solution but need some space to make sure I fully understand the problem first.

• by paulus_magnus on 8/17/15, 4:51 PM

  Even though typing normal text is faster, noting by hand doesn't use as much brain resources so it's possible to listen and note at the same time. Keying occupies abstract mind to the point you cannot process words with the same depth of understanding. Thinking / designing is also MUCH easier in front of a plank page than in front of screen & keyboard.

  Therefore I am working on an app for note taking:

  A bit like if google docs had a baby with OneNote

  - vector graphics/drawings created by freehand / writing http://write-live.com/d/dba21681-8d3f-4fbe-8b4b-e5c1983df934

  http://write-live.com/d/8f9b7846-a7b9-4e5c-b704-dad9aa87d14e

  - unlimited* levels of zoom http://docs.write-live.com/WriteliveServer/webview.html?d=34...

  - draw on a tablet, view on tablet / web http://write-live.com/d/538254c5-7d31-41f2-83bb-bcd0a7cee7ab

• by nether on 8/17/15, 3:36 PM

  Not really. I took notes by hand in my engineering classes in college, and on my laptop in my non-engineering electives (where I didn't need to write equations or draw diagrams). I didn't notice a significant benefit to handwriting in understanding the material. I still had to spend time reviewing my engineering notes afterward. If anything it was possibly more distracting trying to maintain legibility and neatness on top of paying attention to the prof.

• by agentultra on 8/17/15, 3:55 PM

  I use notebooks and pens for all of my note-taking.

  Pulling out a laptop is too slow, cumbersome, and not practical in all situations. My notebooks are slim and discreet.

  My notebooks do not need to be recharged.

  My notebooks are designed to hold ink and can last for hundreds of years in the right conditions. Physics won't change much in that time. Computers and file formats will.

  My notebooks can be easily recycled when I do not wish to keep them anymore. My laptop is expensive to recycle and there is a non-trivial amount of materials within it that are not recoverable and must simply be stored somewhere...

  A pen and paper is the most intuitive interface we have for recording thought. It's entirely free-form and adapts to how I wish to use it without any programming or maintaining complicated digital formats. It exists as a single artifact.

  I won't be interrupted mid-stream by a hardware failure, power-outage and I won't lose my work to corruption.

  My notebook doesn't phone home to the NSA (yet) or the cloud.

  With a good method of organization I can find my notes without much difficulty. Sure I can tag, search, and sort through the streams of bytes I write out on a disk but I rarely find use for such functionality. I'm sure I can keep a database of my books if this becomes an issue.

  My thoughts exist in a physical artifact. This gives me a sense of permanence and will certainly leave evidence of my passing when I'm gone. Someone will have to pick up that stack of books and do something with it. Digital files can simply be deleted. Time-stamps and some bytes in an archive don't seem to have the same effect.

• by hrabago on 8/17/15, 3:14 PM

  For solving complex problems, yes.

  On my own personal projects, I get very limited time. For these, I go straight to the keyboard and put in as many characters as I can.

  However, every now and then I come across something beyond simple. Going in without a well designed plan ends up costing me time. Here, I take out my notebook and start sketching diagrams. I've tried this with various digital alternatives, but analog still works best for me.

• by sporkenfang on 8/17/15, 3:38 PM

  For anything important, I take notes and draw by hand, and I don't print (never learned how to, due to a slightly unusual upbringing, and all previous attempts to learn have ended with a mash of cursive and unjoined lettering since I'm so damned slow at printing), I write in cursive. No tablet, as of yet, has been able to replicate the feel of pencil on paper in a pleasing fashion; nor (and this is the important part) can a filesystem replicate flipping through a notebook of engineering grid paper to get to the topic I want.

  Also, despite ~20 years of typing practice, for coding and other reasons, my handwriting is still an order of magnitude faster than my typing (I can see how people who only print would have slower handwriting, though, certainly). I don't use shorthand or anything, just if I want to get my thoughts down fast and accompany them with a sketch and/or reference them later, they must be handwritten.

  I'd never code on paper, however; that's a terrifying thought. I definitely take notes and whatnot if needed on paper or on a whiteboard while coding in a text editor, though.

• by loteck on 8/17/15, 3:43 PM

  One strange benefit I have found for note taking on paper has nothing to do with technology or memory or privacy.

  I have noticed that when I am discussing a project or issue with someone and I take notes about what they are saying, they feel notably more confident and happy with me, going so far as to report to my superiors how they appreciate that I'm doing it.

  While I may or may not ever refer back to the notes I take, it clearly imbues the benefit of making the other party feel important. That's very useful to me.

  We only get push-back on having laptops up during meetings; there seems to be a perception that it is distracting to the meeting. However, there are times when taking typed notes is superior to hand-writing (and vice-versa), researchers suspect. [0]

  [0] http://www.fastcompany.com/3044907/work-smart/how-typing-is-...

• by loumf on 8/17/15, 3:00 PM

  Many times I prefer hand-writing because it's likely I need to add some kind of sketch (drawing, diagram, etc).

• by ericmo on 8/17/15, 2:56 PM

  Most of the time I'm typing, but definitely yes! I mean, just ask these guys! http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-06-29/mathematicians-mourn-l...

• by fsloth on 8/17/15, 3:02 PM

  Hell yes. Except when writing long documents keyboard it is, of course.

  However, I find retrieval and sketching, not to speak of mathematical formulas and diagramming, much easier from a physical notebook.

  I've not yet found a digital medium superior to that of a physical notebook for doing 'notebooklike' things.

• by jabwork on 8/17/15, 3:05 PM

  I still write a variety of things. I've found it improves my ability to recall the things I write

  > Some say that because we write slower than we type, it allows for deeper thinking as opposed to faster thinking, which could be beneficial. Since writing takes longer, I tend to mull over what I'm trying to communicate and condense it. This is likely why I remember it better. However ....

  > because it's harder to edit one is more careful while writing Absolutely not! Given a half pages written text I would likely have no less than a dozen clear markups where I revised or edited a thought.

  I certainly don't want to write everything, or produce professional quality hand-written text, but I find benefit in actually writing things down

• by muratk on 8/17/15, 3:29 PM

  I do. The direct interaction with the pen, the aspect of drawing helps me immensely: I can pull that image from my memory much easier. Therefore, if I need to remember something, I'll write it down, instead of typing it.

  Also, for communicating I find writing/drawing (whiteboard) a very handy tool (in the toolshed). There is the potential problem of bad handwriting, but I fix that by forcing myself to not being hasty.

  Finally, there is the aspect of authenticity; that seems to be important: Many cafés and shops arguably use it to appear more humane.

  The carefulness aspect I don't see myself. I can think while typing, whereas while writing my attention seems to be caught more by the task at hand.

• by chipuni on 8/17/15, 3:28 PM

  I tend to program with a pen and a pad of graph paper at my side.

  I tend to program in a 'distraction-free mode', where my IDE covers the whole screen. I still need a place to take notes, to hold my to-do list, and to make simple diagrams of dependencies.

• by digitalzombie on 8/17/15, 3:37 PM

  There was a discussion where most people prefer physical books for technical books where as ebook for pleasure book.

  With physical book I write in the margin, for more explanation, clarification, or errata that I believe the book may have.

• by anthonybsd on 8/17/15, 4:27 PM

  I find that when I write things down, even if I never go back to my notes, I remember and process the information in much greater capacity. Sometimes at SCRUM I'll even write down other people's updates that I deem important just to solidify the information better. It doesn't help that my handwriting from the time of High School was virtually unintelligible which caused me to adopt fountain pens and a form of cursive which fixed it somewhat.

• by leni536 on 8/17/15, 3:11 PM

  Sure, for quick sketches and formulas. Also I use pen and paper for collaboration a lot. I would love to replace pen and paper to something digital, but it would still be handwriting. Is there any good touch interface where I can input subscript and superscript heavy formulas (like tensor algebra)? The touch interfaces and styluses that I tried were quite poor for this kind of precision, I didn't try any recent one though.

• by tboyd47 on 8/17/15, 3:39 PM

  The main benefit to me is accessibility. I have a notepad I like to keep with me, so I can take and review my notes no matter where I am without lugging my computer around and fumbling with the power cord.

  Writing things by hand is just generally more pleasant too. There's no pain involved with writing, while I've never found a setup for typing on a computer that doesn't cause some level of wrist or shoulder pain.

• by thelittleyes on 8/20/15, 4:23 AM

  The main advantages of hand-writing for me (and I noticed this a lot when I was going through The Artists Way), was that it slowed me way down (my mind would try to race past how fast I could write but I would have to remain present), and also that I would entirely focused on the task, because Facebook or another website wasn't just a click away.

• by jason_slack on 8/17/15, 3:47 PM

  so for weekly planning I surely use paper. I use a pad sort of designed for this and then modify it slightly to make it last longer: http://imgur.com/vmoQhYG,6RKCKV7,EqJgFLr,6fJgCn3

  For projects, future ideas, thoughts of things I might do some day, I use a notebook and designate a few pages per item. I also click in pages, printouts, etc for that idea to remind me of things.

  http://imgur.com/vmoQhYG,6RKCKV7,EqJgFLr,6fJgCn3#1

  http://imgur.com/vmoQhYG,6RKCKV7,EqJgFLr,6fJgCn3#2

  http://imgur.com/vmoQhYG,6RKCKV7,EqJgFLr,6fJgCn3#3

• by Glide on 8/17/15, 3:14 PM

  One of the best things I did for myself is to buy a copy of Write Now and improve my handwriting.

  I can't think of a faster way of combining drawings and thoughts than paper and pencil.

  Now I just need to teach myself shorthand to minimize the speed difference between typing and handwriting.

• by kawera on 8/17/15, 3:26 PM

  What You Miss When You Take Notes on Your Laptop:

  https://hbr.org/2015/07/what-you-miss-when-you-take-notes-on...

• by gregjwild on 8/17/15, 3:24 PM

  All the time.

  The days of long-form writing are definitely over, but I think noting things down will remain a constant for many years to come.

  For me, I find it helps me think more abstractly and plan my thoughts better, because it's just more fluid to scribble ideas down.

• by reustle on 8/17/15, 2:51 PM

  I write my daily task list in a small Moleskine every day. I can't add or remove items like I can with a digital task list, and I'm stuck looking at it on that page for the rest of the week, so I'm often reminded to finish it.

• by DrinkWater on 8/17/15, 3:45 PM

  Here is a video about a Master Penman, describing his experience and the benefits of writing by hand.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvSyQDu49pI

• by oconnore on 8/17/15, 3:02 PM

  A pencil and a blank piece of paper can do so much more than just write individual words. I can get an idea down faster with paper, and those diagrams are more descriptive (easier to pick up again in 2 weeks).

• by postitit on 8/17/15, 4:04 PM

  I like to keep notebooks, but usually for personal notes. For work, it can be useful for situations when it's important to establish rapport (meetings, interviews)

• by 1arity on 8/17/15, 3:27 PM

  No. It's getting worse and worse.

  Tho the quality of the thinking when hand-writing and when typing is different. For that, currently, it is irreplaceable.

• by fernandotakai on 8/17/15, 6:15 PM

  i still use a notepad for my daily tasks and random note taking. i feel like there's not a single good note taking app for phones -- most of the don't sync to other platforms or, when they sync, the interface is god awful (i'm looking at you evernote and your editor that works like shit).

  also, i feel like whenever i write something, it's easier to remember.

• by witty_username on 8/17/15, 2:51 PM

  I'm way faster at typing and it's a constant distraction writing it on paper and going back to my thoughts.

• by teamhappy on 8/17/15, 3:35 PM

  I've tried pretty much every to-do app out there and none of them beats a sheet of paper next to my keyboard.

• by talles on 8/17/15, 3:30 PM

  I always architect things first on paper. Can't beat it to draw diagrams and things alike.