Handwriting stimulates the brain, reduces anxiety and makes you safer: that’s why it’s worth putting aside the keyboard and getting back to holding a pen.
Handwriting is good.
According to science, holding a pen stimulates creativity and strengthens memory, much more than any smartphone, tablet or PC on which you only press keys.
To support the thesis, some studies and many millenary traditions (such as the Chinese calligraphy or the Amanuense one of the medieval monks).
At Harvard, you have to write by hand
At Harvard, one of the most prestigious universities in the world, many professors require their students to take notes by hand. Sure, this does not mean they must not use important tools such as online spelling checker and dictionaries.
It emerged from an investigation by the U.S. magazine Medium, accompanied by scientific evidence that writing on tablets, PCs and smartphones is less incisive for the memory and the brain than the traditional method.
Also in the USA, Arizona and North Carolina, several schools have launched appeals and campaigns to return to teaching italics correctly (which seems to be disappearing, totally undermined by the print, not to mention by emoticons).
According to Benedetto Vertecchi, professor of Pedagogy at the University of Roma Tre, handwriting would increase children’s ability to speak, allowing them to express more reflective and reasoned thoughts on paper.
Moreover, according to the studies conducted by Prof. Vertecchi, holding a pen or a pencil improves the general manual skills of the child.
Handwriting reduces anxiety
The mere fact of holding a pen, looking at it as it slides on a sheet of paper and impressing one’s thoughts with ink is a potent anxiolytic.
A bit like colouring mandalas or drawing, writing also helps to relax and relax mind and muscles.
Often, in moments of high stress, you tend to sketch drawings on paper. The same balsamic effect, on a mental level, is caused by writing.
Whether it’s a diary, a shopping list or a list of good intentions for the new year, the important thing is not the content but the form.
Handwriting as a World Heritage Site?
This is what the International Graphological Institute Girolamo Moretti of Urbino is asking out loud. This Italian institution in support of calligraphy has asked UNESCO to proclaim handwriting a World Heritage Site.
The Chinese calligraphy is already inscribed among the oral and immaterial heritage of humanity.
Italian associations manual pro-writing
In Italy, several associations are flourishing, fighting to defend handwriting. ACI, the Italian Calligraphy Association, is registering a real boom in enrolments to its calligraphy courses.
The seminars organized by the association Smed (acronym for Writing by hand in the digital age) are also very popular: creative workshops in which to finally regain possession of cursive writing and what we once called “beautiful writing” and that had to flow into the classroom tasks “in beautiful copy”, precisely, to get a good grade.
Once upon a time, in fact, the handwriting was an integral part of the Italian school, one of the evaluation criteria in the humanities.
Famous people who like to write by hand
Jackie Kennedy was the First Lady with the most beautiful handwriting in the history of the White House, in fact, all the Christmas cards, thanks and official invitations were written manually by the wife of the President.
Another First Lady who has a real gift in her fingers is Meghan Markle: the Duchess revealed that as a young woman she wrote invitations for weddings on commission.
Many writers, then, prefer first manual drafting of their books, for example, James Ellroy. But even film scripts often prefer pen and paper, as is the case with Quentin Tarantino and George Clooney.
