The Case for Analog Processing
/We've been sold consolidation and speed.
Everything in one place. Searchable. Synced across devices. Type faster. Swipe quicker. Voice-to-text everything.
But neuroscience is telling us to slow down.
Research from Princeton and UCLA shows handwriting forces you to process information, not just record it. You can't write fast enough to transcribe verbatim, so your brain automatically summarizes, connects, distills. The act of forming letters by hand activates the reticular activating system—the part of your brain that says "pay attention, this matters."
Typing? Your fingers know the patterns. Your brain can drift. And emerging research suggests AI summaries and voice-to-text reduce it even further—less deep processing, less working memory engagement.
There's a practical benefit, too.
Handwritten notes create a natural filter. When you transfer only what matters to your digital system, you're forced to decide what's actually worth keeping. Digital-first means everything gets saved. Handwritten-first means you curate as you go.
This doesn't mean abandon your laptop.
It means during that meeting, or before you start that project, or before you plan your week—reach for a pen.
Five minutes of handwritten processing beats an hour of digital spinning.
Sources: Mueller, P. A., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2014). The pen is mightier than the keyboard. Psychological Science, 25(6), 1159-1168. | van der Meer, A. L. H., & van der Weel, F. R. (2021). Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 706810.