This research confirms something I’ve long known from experience — writing by hand helps the thinking process and allows us to access parts of the brain that typing does not. I love typing. (I’m doing it right now.) But working on a keyboard leads to and supports a different kind of writing than what results when I take pen in hand. And writing by hand sometimes brings back those memories of learning cursive (oh, the existential angst of the 6-year-old — “will I ever learn how to do this???” and the wonderfully pulpy yellow paper with blue lines that we practiced on). Handwriting takes us into a more soulful level, and allows us to connect to our physical environment, in an increasingly device-driven world. Check out the research: http://www.washington.edu/news/blog/uw-prof-handwriting-engages-the-mind/