If you're like many digitally savvy Americans, it has likely been a while since you've spent much time writing by hand.

       The laborious process of tracing out our thoughts, letter by letter, on the page is becoming a relic of the past in our screen-dominated world, where text messages and thumb-typed grocery lists have replaced handwritten letters and sticky notes. Electronic keyboards offer obvious efficiency benefits that have undoubtedly boosted our productivity — imagine having to write all your emails longhand.

       To keep up, many schools are introducing computers as early as preschool, meaning some kids may learn the basics of typing before writing by hand.

       But giving up this slower, more tactile way of expressing ourselves may come at a significant cost, according to a growing body of research that’s uncovering the surprising cognitive benefits of taking pen to paper, or even stylus to iPad — for both children and adults. In kids, studies show that tracing out ABCs, as opposed to typing them, leads to better and longer-lasting recognition and understanding of letters. Writing by hand also improves memory and recall of words, laying down the foundations of literacy and learning. In adults, taking notes by hand during a lecture, instead of typing, can lead to better conceptual understanding of material. 

       “There’s actually some very important things going on during the embodied experience of writing by hand,” says Ramesh Balasubramaniam, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Merced. “It has important cognitive benefits.” While those benefits have long been recognized by some (for instance, many authors, including Jennifer Egan and Neil Gaiman, draft their stories by hand to stoke creativity), scientists have only recently started investigating why writing by hand has these effects.

       A slew of recent brain imaging research suggests handwriting’s power stems from the relative complexity of the process and how it forces different brain systems to work together to reproduce the shapes of letters in our heads onto the page.

       Both handwriting and typing involve moving our hands and fingers to create words on a page.But handwriting, it turns out, requires a lot more fine-tuned coordination between the motor and visual systems. This seems to more deeply engage the brain in ways that support learning. 

        “Handwriting is probably among the most complex motor skills that the brain is capable of,” says Marieke Longcamp, a cognitive neuroscientist at Aix-Marseille Université. Gripping a pen nimbly enough to write is a complicated task, as it requires your brain to continuously monitor the pressure that each finger exerts on the pen. Then, your motor system has to delicately modify that pressure to re-create each letter of the words in your head on the page.

       “Your fingers have to each do something different to produce a recognizable letter,” says Sophia Vinci-Booher, an educational neuroscientist at Vanderbilt University. Adding to the complexity, your visual system must continuously process that letter as it’s formed. With each stroke, your brain compares the unfolding script with mental models of the letters and words, making adjustments to fingers in real time to create the letters’ shapes, says VinciBooher.

       That’s not true for typing.

       To type “tap” your fingers don’t have to trace out the form of the letters — they just make three relatively simple and uniform movements. In comparison, it takes a lot more brainpower, as well as cross-talk between brain areas, to write than type.    

       Recent brain imaging studies bolster this idea. A study published in January found that when students write by hand, brain areas involved in motor and visual information processing “sync up” with areas crucial to memory formation, firing at frequencies associated with learning.

       “We don't see that [synchronized activity] in typewriting at all,” says Audrey van der Meer, a psychologist and study co-author at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. She suggests that writing by hand is a neurobiologically richer process and that this richness may confer some cognitive benefits.

       Other experts agree. “There seems to be something fundamental about engaging your body to produce these shapes,” says Robert Wiley, a cognitive psychologist at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. “It lets you make associations between your body and what you’re seeing and hearing,” he says, which might give the mind more footholds for accessing a given concept or idea.

       Those extra footholds are especially important for learning in kids, but they may give adults a leg up too. Wiley and others worry that ditching handwriting for typing could have serious consequences for how we all learn and think. What might be lost as handwriting wanes

       The clearest consequence of screens and keyboards replacing pen and paper might be on kids’ ability to learn the building blocks of literacy — letters.

       “Letter recognition in early childhood is actually one of the best predictors of later reading and math attainment,” says Vinci-Booher. Her work suggests the process of learning to write letters by hand is crucial for learning to read them.

       “When kids write letters, they’re just messy,” she says. As kids practice writing “A,” each iteration is different, and that variability helps solidify their conceptual understanding of the letter.

       Research suggests kids learn to recognize letters better when seeing variable handwritten examples, compared with uniform typed examples. This helps develop areas of the brain used during reading in older children and adults, VinciBooher found.

        “This could be one of the ways that early experiences actually translate to long-term life outcomes,” she says. “These visually demanding, fine motor actions bake in neural communication patterns that are really important for learning later on.” 

       Ditching handwriting instruction could mean that those skills don’t get developed as well, which could impair kids’ ability to learn down the road.

       “If young children are not receiving any handwriting training, which is very good brain stimulation, then their brains simply won’t reach their full potential,” says van der Meer. “It's scary to think of the potential consequences.”

No more ‘Michael’ at Kakao Games 

       Kakao Games has decided to scrap using English names among its employees, becoming the first Kakao affiliate to backtrack on the IT front-runner’s attempt to make a more bottom-up working environment with open communication.

       Kakao Games CEO Han Sang-woo, whose English name is Michael, announced the decision in a meeting with employees on April 17, noting that there had been confusion as its workers had to use English names inside the company but went by their Korean names for external communication.

       Instead of using English names, Han said the employees will now add “nim” at the end of each other’s Korean name when addressing one another. Nim is an honorific suffix used in the Korean language to show respect. Compared to adding nim at the end of hierarchically ranked job titles, adding it to the end of employee names shows respect to individuals in an egalitarian manner.

       Kakao Games said the exact timing for the implementation of the new name system has not been determined yet, adding that the employees have already been using both English names and the nim suffix for Korean names.

       Kakao was one of the first companies to adopt English names in the workplace since its establishment in 2010. Kim Beom-su, the founder of the IT giant, has long been referred to by his English name, Brian.

       Kakao has been recently embroiled in its worst crisis due to a series of controversies and legal risks such as the alleged manipulation of SM Entertainment’s stock price during its takeover attempt of the K-pop agency and its executives facing criticism over profiting off of selling shares in their companies. ‘Fundamental changes’  

       With Kakao’s brand image at an arguably all-time low, the founder underscored his will to make “fundamental changes,” even to the name of the company, to turn things around.

       “It’s been 14 years since our crew debuted KakaoTalk with the aspiration to make the world better,” said Kim in an internal announcement in December last year.

        “I feel terrible about the current situation in which we are being criticized for ‘greedily trying to make money by even going after mom-and-pop shops’ just a few years after being asked, ‘How will you make money with free services?’

        Saying that it is time for Kakao to “abandon the inertia of the last 10 years and design anew from the beginning,” Kim said everything, including Kakao’s use of English names, information sharing and horizontal culture, which the company has taken for granted, should be reviewed from the ground up.

       However, Kakao explained that Kim’s mention of the English name system just shows how far he is willing to go in terms of transforming the company’s culture altogether.

       Regarding speculations that other Kakao affiliates might follow in Kakao Games’ direction, Kakao clarified that it was the gaming company’s independent decision. For the time being, there will be no more Michael, the CEO’s English name, at Kakao Games. English names ‘out of place’ 

       Although a number of Korean companies have adopted using English names among their workers for a horizontal culture to bring out the best of all personnel, the sudden clash with Korea’s longtime emphasis on hierarchical rank may not have resulted in the most desirable scenario, some experts and stakeholders say.

       According to a survey about the need for companies to reduce company hierarchies by job search website Saramin of 1,153 workers here in 2021, only 6.3 percent of respondents preferred using English names in the workplace, whereas 37.1 percent preferred using the Korean honorific suffix of nim after their Korean names, regardless of their position title. The largest share of 3 respondents -- 40.1 percent -- preferred that company hierarchies by reduced to a maximum of three levels only.

       “Using English names was to follow the style of US companies and bolster communication among employees,” said Kim Dae-jong, a business professor at Sejong University.

       “But getting completely rid of Korean names and position titles seemed to have made Korean workers feel out of place. I think (Kakao Games’ decision to remove English names) will spread to other firms because it’s inefficient. In order to increase efficiency, you need to know clearly who is who,” Kim continued, pointing to a lack of clarity that he felt arises when Korean employees suddenly start using English first names only.

       An official working at a company that allows employees to use an English name if they wish argued that adopting the English name system feels to them like “sadaejuui,” a Korean term to indicate an obsession with the powerful and an attempt to imitate them blindly. 

       “To me, using English names at a Korean company looks like a mere (superficial) attempt to follow ‘Western culture.’ It does not make sense for companies such as Kakao that do not have many foreign employees to make workers call each other by English names,” said the official.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　The Benefits of Knowing English

       In this era, we have more chance to connect with foreigners, so we should learn English to link up with them. In my junior high school, there were some Korean and German exchange students. I could not say Korean and German, but I could talk to them by English. There are thousands of languages exist in the world. It is impossible to learn all of the languages, so we should learn English to increase our ability to communicate with foreigners.

       All countries have their own language type and culture. We can understand other nations by reading books. For example, I like touring around the world. Before setting out, I used to collect tourist information. However, if I want to go to France, I can’t use it. So, English will play an important role in the situation, I can read tourist books written by English or search information on a website with English editions.

       On the reality side, because of globalization, many companies have branches all over the world. That means when a company wants to send employees to another country, the ability to speak English becomes one of the important considering factors. If you can use English fluently, you can shorten the time to conquer the language barrier. So, when a company has overseas career opportunities, the ability of English becomes a pro situation to catch this chance. In short, knowing English can bring a lot of benefits, we should learn English as good  as possible.