With the increasing use of digital technologies in our daily life, some of our behavioural aspects are undergoing major transformations. In his book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, Internet critic Nicholas Carr discusses the transformative impact of technology on the human mind and concludes that ‘as we adapt to the intellectual environment of the Net our thinking becomes shallower'. Another area where the impact of technology has been significantly marked is in writing and more specifically penmanship. Young learners and mostly digital natives are relying predominantly on typing to do their writing. In a study referenced in the visual below, 1 in 3 people in the United Kingdom have not put pen to paper in 41 days. However, the quasi demise of penmanship has cognitive costs. The visual below created by the folks in Study Medicine Europe offers some interesting insights into the advantages of handwriting especially for students and how it can help them become better learners.
