Culture | Johnson

The importance of handwriting is becoming better understood

Research on pens and paper highlights their benefits

A person's hand, writing with a pen that has a lightbulb on the end
Illustration: Nick Lowndes

Two and a half millennia ago, Socrates complained that writing would harm students. With a way to store ideas permanently and externally, they would no longer need to memorise. It is tempting to dismiss him as an old man complaining about change. Socrates did not have a stack of peer-reviewed science to make his case about the usefulness of learning concepts by heart.

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This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Hand-wringing over handwriting”

From the September 16th 2023 edition

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