In this digital age, most of us no longer write by hand very often. But are we sacrificing our ability to learn and remember, by replacing pen and paper with keyboard and screen?
I love this article! I am an old fashioned notebook, pen and highlighter person for taking notes on material that I am studying. I have to read from an old fashioned book and can’t read without a pen in my hand. But, I am forever grateful for the keyboard when putting thoughts into long form to educate others on the critical topics that are impacting us.
I can’t wait to listen to James Corbett’s take on WWI!! Thanks for including a link.
Speaking of old fashioned books, I would love your opinion on Peter Attia’s book, Outlive….have you read it? When he argues in favor of statins early in the book, I am wondering if it is worth reading the 400pp I have left. This book is SUPER popular in the US 🙄
I'm an old-fashioned book person too. I spend waaaaay too long each day reading stuff on screens, so when it comes time to read a book, it has to be a REAL book!.
I haven't read Attia's book and don't plan to. His whole approach is just too 'doctory' for me - that is, he still sees illness and degeneration through a medical lens, in which problems created by diet and lifestyle choices are solved through technological fixes rather than removal of causes of disease, and provision of the causes of health.
Thanks for the Corbett links. I have followed him some over the last four years. There are some very amazing voices in this space of truth! Hard to keep up sometimes 🥴
Writing, and prepping for writing, is the greatest path toward synthesizing knowlege. I am currently poking people in some of my chat groups to create their graphs (organized research; pre-writing). I think these are things that we must find ways to motivate in more people in order to reach a state where the trauma-driven Matrix can be deconstructed.
Couldn't agree more. In order to write coherently about a subject, you MUST understand it deeply. Writing is thinking, embodied. After reading the research that I covered in this article, I'm going to be doing a lot more of the initial planning stages of my writing by hand.
When you were teaching mathematics to kids, did you ever have the opportunity to observe the differences in conceptual understanding between kids who wrote equations etc by hand, and those who did it using digital technology? After reading the research on literacy and handwriting, I have a sneaking suspicion that much of the innumeracy that's widely evident today is not just because people use calculators instead of their brains for basic mathematical operations, but specifically because they're not writing down those operations.
I recently purchased a reMarkable which is great for writing notes, or even longer writings. It can then convert to text, so you get the tactile feeling of writing with the benefit of legibility. I think the preference for writing carries over to reading as I prefer real books to kindle or other computer based reading.
I much prefer hand-writing notes when listening to lectures and reading books as I can feel the info 'sinking in' deeper. However, you can't beat the search and find features on digital devices, so much quicker than trawling through written notes.
I wonder about reading, is comprehension and learning better when reading a hard-copy book compared to digital books, audio-books and videos?
I know that I can remember what I've read far better from 'proper' books than from e-books. And I know for a fact that it's at least partially attributable to the richer contextual clues, as I can picture where on the page the particular quote etc appeared.
Audiobooks and podcasts are an interesting case. I can remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard a particular passage or quote. So I'm guessing my mind is actually creating the visual/contextual/motoric 'hooks' on which to hang the memory.
As for videos, my recollections of what I 'learned' do tend to be hazier than when I read a book.
I'm sure there are some differences between individuals in their learning preferences, but overall the message seems to be that engaging more actively with the learning material leads to better retention and comprehension.
I cannot read a real book without a pencil in hand and several near by. I write notes, underline and highlight (with different colours), make comments.... I remember reading how David Foster Wallace did this and I finally felt free to 'deface' my books as I'd always wanted to.... it was so liberating!
Yes, I feel much the same way as you have described. Reading a video transcript is much better for my learning than watching the video, but watching the video seems more enjoyable, perhaps because it takes less effort than reading and imagining. The mind drifts a lot when video watching, with reading it usually stays laser-focused.
I notice that when a video has closed captioning, I'm always drawn to reading the captions even if I'm having no problem at all understanding what is being said. This helps me to stay focused as, like you, I tend to wander off otherwise. Although if I play videos at 1.25 or 1.5 speed (or even 1.75 for certain drawling American voices), I drift off a lot less as my brain is working harder to keep up with what's being said. I listen to most podcasts at 1.8 speed, which drives my husband completely insane 🤣.
I like to write with pencil and paper (or rather scribble, my writing is pretty illegible too). At Uni I took hand written notes at my lectures and then later re-wrote / summarised them into something more legible. I suspect we have lost the art of learning and recalling what we hear - some of the ancient traditions have people memorising entire books of the Bible - that's just what people did.
I did the same - I took hand-written notes and then converted them into 4 x 6 index cards (remember them????) using multiple coloured pens.
Have you read or watched Fahrenheit 451? Books are banned in this future dystopian society, so the rebels gather in the forest and each of them memorises a book, hoping that when the current regime is overcome, they will be able to rebuild society and once again turn their memorised book into a printed book.
The memory capacity of ancient people was extraordinary. Bards and monks would recite or sing everything from The Iliad and The Odyssey to all the psalms. Most people now are flat out remembering their family members' phone numbers, because they're all saved in the Contacts list.
I always wanted to write fictional stories later in life, so now I'm studying journalism.
There seem to be plenty of job opportunities in that particular branch of fiction-writing.
I love this article! I am an old fashioned notebook, pen and highlighter person for taking notes on material that I am studying. I have to read from an old fashioned book and can’t read without a pen in my hand. But, I am forever grateful for the keyboard when putting thoughts into long form to educate others on the critical topics that are impacting us.
I can’t wait to listen to James Corbett’s take on WWI!! Thanks for including a link.
Speaking of old fashioned books, I would love your opinion on Peter Attia’s book, Outlive….have you read it? When he argues in favor of statins early in the book, I am wondering if it is worth reading the 400pp I have left. This book is SUPER popular in the US 🙄
I'm an old-fashioned book person too. I spend waaaaay too long each day reading stuff on screens, so when it comes time to read a book, it has to be a REAL book!.
Corbett's WWI doco is incredibly thought-provoking. After you finish that, you can work your way through his other docos and material at https://corbettreport.com/. 'False Flags: The secret history of Al-Qaeda' (https://corbettreport.com/alqaeda/) and 'How & Why Big Oil Conquered The World' (https://corbettreport.com/bigoil/) are particularly good.
I haven't read Attia's book and don't plan to. His whole approach is just too 'doctory' for me - that is, he still sees illness and degeneration through a medical lens, in which problems created by diet and lifestyle choices are solved through technological fixes rather than removal of causes of disease, and provision of the causes of health.
Thanks for the Corbett links. I have followed him some over the last four years. There are some very amazing voices in this space of truth! Hard to keep up sometimes 🥴
Sooooo hard to keep up!
Finish the book. The last part is better.
Thanks! I am struggling through the first part but hate to not finish. His push for statins is revealing….someday his eyes will be opened too.
I had a look into Peter Attia's book but found it all too huckster-y for my liking.
Writing, and prepping for writing, is the greatest path toward synthesizing knowlege. I am currently poking people in some of my chat groups to create their graphs (organized research; pre-writing). I think these are things that we must find ways to motivate in more people in order to reach a state where the trauma-driven Matrix can be deconstructed.
Couldn't agree more. In order to write coherently about a subject, you MUST understand it deeply. Writing is thinking, embodied. After reading the research that I covered in this article, I'm going to be doing a lot more of the initial planning stages of my writing by hand.
When you were teaching mathematics to kids, did you ever have the opportunity to observe the differences in conceptual understanding between kids who wrote equations etc by hand, and those who did it using digital technology? After reading the research on literacy and handwriting, I have a sneaking suspicion that much of the innumeracy that's widely evident today is not just because people use calculators instead of their brains for basic mathematical operations, but specifically because they're not writing down those operations.
Schools in Japan still have abacus clubs, and kids still join them!
WOW!!!!!
I recently purchased a reMarkable which is great for writing notes, or even longer writings. It can then convert to text, so you get the tactile feeling of writing with the benefit of legibility. I think the preference for writing carries over to reading as I prefer real books to kindle or other computer based reading.
That sounds brilliant!
I much prefer hand-writing notes when listening to lectures and reading books as I can feel the info 'sinking in' deeper. However, you can't beat the search and find features on digital devices, so much quicker than trawling through written notes.
I wonder about reading, is comprehension and learning better when reading a hard-copy book compared to digital books, audio-books and videos?
I know that I can remember what I've read far better from 'proper' books than from e-books. And I know for a fact that it's at least partially attributable to the richer contextual clues, as I can picture where on the page the particular quote etc appeared.
Audiobooks and podcasts are an interesting case. I can remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard a particular passage or quote. So I'm guessing my mind is actually creating the visual/contextual/motoric 'hooks' on which to hang the memory.
As for videos, my recollections of what I 'learned' do tend to be hazier than when I read a book.
I'm sure there are some differences between individuals in their learning preferences, but overall the message seems to be that engaging more actively with the learning material leads to better retention and comprehension.
I cannot read a real book without a pencil in hand and several near by. I write notes, underline and highlight (with different colours), make comments.... I remember reading how David Foster Wallace did this and I finally felt free to 'deface' my books as I'd always wanted to.... it was so liberating!
Yes, I feel much the same way as you have described. Reading a video transcript is much better for my learning than watching the video, but watching the video seems more enjoyable, perhaps because it takes less effort than reading and imagining. The mind drifts a lot when video watching, with reading it usually stays laser-focused.
I notice that when a video has closed captioning, I'm always drawn to reading the captions even if I'm having no problem at all understanding what is being said. This helps me to stay focused as, like you, I tend to wander off otherwise. Although if I play videos at 1.25 or 1.5 speed (or even 1.75 for certain drawling American voices), I drift off a lot less as my brain is working harder to keep up with what's being said. I listen to most podcasts at 1.8 speed, which drives my husband completely insane 🤣.
Yes, I'm the same with reading captions. Speeding up the videos and podcasts is a good idea, I'll give it a go!
Let me know whether it works for you.
I retain very little from books I read electronically.
I like to write with pencil and paper (or rather scribble, my writing is pretty illegible too). At Uni I took hand written notes at my lectures and then later re-wrote / summarised them into something more legible. I suspect we have lost the art of learning and recalling what we hear - some of the ancient traditions have people memorising entire books of the Bible - that's just what people did.
I did the same - I took hand-written notes and then converted them into 4 x 6 index cards (remember them????) using multiple coloured pens.
Have you read or watched Fahrenheit 451? Books are banned in this future dystopian society, so the rebels gather in the forest and each of them memorises a book, hoping that when the current regime is overcome, they will be able to rebuild society and once again turn their memorised book into a printed book.
The memory capacity of ancient people was extraordinary. Bards and monks would recite or sing everything from The Iliad and The Odyssey to all the psalms. Most people now are flat out remembering their family members' phone numbers, because they're all saved in the Contacts list.