[mwcampbell]

To counterbalance this budding glorification of handwriting, I'll reiterate here the drawbacks of handwritten text which have more to do with the results than the process:

1. It inevitably occupies physical space for as long as it exists.

2. It is trapped in a format that cannot be (reliably) converted to electronic text.

3. As a corollary, it is not searchable by machine, so I'd argue it's not quickly searchable on any large scale.

4. As another corollary, it cannot be made accessible to people who can't read written text (e.g. visually impaired people), at least not without the manual effort of retyping it.

If you're writing just to capture your own thoughts, and the only intended reader is you, and you have the space for it, I suppose I can't object to it without getting into a discussion about individualism versus collectivism. But handwriting has absolutely no attractions for me.

[fogus]

    If you're writing just to capture your 
    own thoughts, and the only intended 
    reader is you

Isn't that what we're talking about here? I don't write notes to put on display. I write notes to help in my personal understanding. The very act of writing some things down helps to crystallize them in my own mind. I rarely go back and look over what I've written. However, in the rare case that I do I've devised an indexing system that allows me to find a given note on a given topic fairly quickly. The whole process of writing, indexing and occasional look up is a process meant (and effective for me) in gaining understanding. I work best with handwritten notes, you do not. There is no glorification happening here.

[telemachos]

Unlike fogus, I am trying to glorify writing by hand in some contexts at least. (The proviso is important: I don't think that writing by hand is always better.)

I believe that writing by hand helps me to think better and write better, precisely because it's slower. (There's probably also something about me liking the specific physical feedback, but I would be the first to admit that's probably idiosyncratic and learned rather than universal.)

As for all the virtues of typed text that you mention, I agree. If you look at my process from above, I typed up what I had handwritten earlier. But even though this means some obvious duplication of effort, the net outcome was worth it for me (and still is).

No doubt people vary and all that, but I think writing by hand is vastly underrated nowadays. I stand by that.

[tincholio]

Having been working at improving my penmanship over the last few months, I've found that writing by hand can be a very relaxing activity as well. That's a bonus, for me. (plus, I now get complimented on my nice handwriting quite often!)

[adrianhoward]

For me it seems to get me in a different mode of thinking. I tend to find it helps me unblock if I get stuck writing/coding/thinking if I switch from keyboard to pen, or from pen to keyboard. Writing with a pen forces me to slow down - and sometimes that's a good thing.

And there are also the non-textual things you can do with paper. I draw and sketch a lot.

[shrikant]

Hidden point #5 for me: it always cost me points on essay-type answers in any tests I took through all my years of school.

I could literally have written the same answer as someone else and they'd get a 10/10, while I'd get a 8/10 because the teacher would claim to struggle to read what I'd written. (This may or may not be true, but that's beside the point.)

Fuck that.

[pnathan]

Handwriting and penmanship is somewhat of an art form.

It's a different headspace than churning out writing on an editor.