Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

I think there's a critical element missing from these experiments: transcribing information vs storing knowledge.

When you're transcribing things (writing down as you hear or see it), you're normally not involved in learning or remembering the information; merely writing it down. In this case, handwriting would help to remember it later since writing on autopilot a more involved process than typing on autopilot.

HOWEVER, when it comes to writing down KNOWLEDGE, it's a very different experience. This is why I always advocate to think before you type, and why less than 10% of my time spent developing software involves actually touching the keys on my keyboard. A live coding session with me would be extremely boring; 10 minutes of me staring into space, followed by 1 minute of dumping the code into the source file. But I'm very productive; my projects on github, sourceforge and sunsite speak for themselves.

From the point that I entered college onwards, I've barely handwritten a paragraph of text per year (going on 25 years). I noticed no difference in cognition or memory then, nor do I now. Re-reading things I've typed in the past bring the whole experience flooding back the same as is expressed in the article as a handwriting experience. But then again, I'm not transcribing; I'm writing down knowledge.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: