The Risks Of Stopping Handwriting
With the advent of new technologies, paper and pen have become redundant. However, after checking out the benefits of writing with these tools, a question arises – is there any risk in stopping handwriting?
It is true that many adults refuse to give up this habit, even though the use of computers, tablets and cellphones prompts us to do so.
Little by little, computers were installed in schools. However, as Morocho Jaen and Katherine Malena point out, this is one of the first drawbacks of using technology. This would indeed be a factor of disinterest for the students when writing a text by hand.
Stopping handwriting therefore influences children’s development.
Although the decline in handwriting is seen as a natural consequence of the influence of technology, the impact of the latter has not been the same for everyone. Those who discovered the computer in adolescence or adulthood learned to write by hand and benefited from it. However, today, as it is often said, children are born “with a tablet in their hands”.
While technologies have many benefits, growing up with them and letting them take precedence over handwriting can affect children’s brain development.
Karin James’ study
The BBC interviewed Karin James, neuroscientist and professor at Bloomington University. Concerned about this reality, she conducted several surveys on children who had not yet learned to read.
Even when they were able to identify certain letters of the alphabet, putting them together to form words was still very difficult. To test the effects of stopping handwriting, she divided the participating children into two groups: the first group was made up of children who were going to learn to write letters by hand, and the second group was made up of children who were going to learn to write letters by hand. others who would learn to write with a computer keyboard.
To find out how children learned, Karin used magnetic resonance imaging. She was able to determine the level of brain activation that occurred when they were learning to write. Likewise, she also assessed changes in the brain throughout the learning process.
The link between handwriting and learning to read
Karin James’ research has brought important results. The brains did not respond the same in children who learned to write by hand as in those who entered words into a computer. First, the first group exhibited brain activity similar to that which occurs in people who can read and write. However, this did not happen with the second group.
Indeed, Karin determined that handwriting establishes a link between learning to write and reading. The fact of doing without it can therefore lead to great difficulties in learning to read.
Every January 23, we celebrate National Handwriting Day.
Technologies and handwriting
Could we use the technologies without it implying the replacement of handwriting? This might be possible by writing on the screen of a tablet with the appropriate stylus, for example. However, there are some differences. Indeed, we will not exert the same pressure on a tablet as on paper. When we write on paper, our hand can get tired early on, if we are not used to it.
In addition, writing on an electronic device is not as easy as it sounds. To realize this, just remember the times when a package arrives at home and we have to sign on a screen. Our signature often lacks a lot of precision.
With all this, we cannot forget another important effect of stopping handwriting: illegibility. This is because if we don’t practice, the hand we use to write will eventually become clumsy. We will have more and more difficulty in expressing ourselves while writing. And you, do you still write by hand?
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