[rendaw]

You've been downvoted to oblivion, but I figured I'll use you as a meat shield since there isn't a single other reply of criticality here AFAICT.

The study talks about connections and frequency, but that seems like a very coarse measure for something as complex as the brain.

> Increased connectivity within the theta (3.5–7.5 Hz) and alpha (8–12.5 Hz) frequency bands has been linked to mechanisms underlying sensorimotor integration (). As increased connectivity in the brain was observed only when writing by hand and not when simply pressing keys on the keyboard, our findings can be taken as evidence that handwriting promotes learning.

Can you? The linked paper appears to be stating association, not causation.

The alternative hypothesis is that the brain activates more because writing by hand is harder, and that by writing by hand you just get better at writing by hand.

My thought is, write in whichever medium you feel you work best in. Maybe try them both. And if you're not productive maybe don't use that medium.

This feels like a lot of grasping to try to justify some retroism (why does it need justification?).

[burkaman]

This is a fair response and I think would be a good top level comment, you don't need a meat shield. The reason the parent was downvoted was that it isn't criticism, it's just a declaration that they didn't read the article.

There are a lot of citations in the paper backing up the idea that handwriting promotes learning, though (or at least spelling, memory, recall, and letter recognition/understanding). It reads to me like an attempt to explain an observed phenomenon: "given that handwriting appears to promote learning, what could be a mechanism for that?" It isn't in a vacuum just claiming that "these brain signals clearly prove that learning is happening".

The "general discussion" section also covers why the specific connectivity they looked at might be related to learning.

[kstenerud]

The issue is that the title "Writing by hand is good for your brain" does not follow from the cited study. At all.

The EEG measurement is the only real thing in the study, but there was no actual learning task anywhere at all.

Meanwhile, mr "I’m not an expert on how the brain works, but..." blithely goes on with his non-expert opinion, even talking about fountain pens and the various pen tip qualities in a manner smacking of audiophile.

And so the article reaches #1 on HN (supposedly the place of reason), and stays there for hours as everyone ignores the elephant in the room.

This is how junk science is born.