Handwriting has become a dying art, now that kids start using keyboards as soon as they begin school. But writing things out by hand may be a critical way we train our brains, several studies suggest.

手寫已經變成了一項即將消失的藝術，現在孩子們一進入學校，就開始使用鍵盤。但許多研究顯示，用手寫字是開發我們大腦的一項重要方式。

Writing by hand is different from typing because it requires using strokes to create a letter, rather than just selecting the whole letter by touching a key, says Virginia Berninger a professor of psychology at the University of Washington. These finger movements activate large regions of the brain involved in thinking, memory, and language.Handwriting helps children learn letters and shapes, improves their composition of ideas, and may also boost fine-motor skills development.

華盛頓大學的心理學教授維吉尼亞 · 貝爾寧格解釋，手寫不同與打字，因為人們必須一筆一畫地寫出字母，而不是簡單地按著鍵盤，敲出整個字母。手寫時，手指運動刺激了大腦的大部分領域，包括控制思考，記憶和語言這幾個區域。手寫幫助孩子學習單詞及記住其的形狀，有利于他們思維的形成，并且有可能會發展他們小肌肉運動技能 。（打毛衣，微笑等這些都是小肌肉運動）

A study by Berninger found that in grades two, four, and six, children wrote more words, faster, and expressed more ideas when writing essays by hand than when typing on a keyboard.

貝爾寧格的研究發現， 二年級，四年級以及六年級的孩子，與打字相比，他們手寫的單詞量更大，速度更快，并能表達更復雜的思想。

A separate study by researchers at Indiana University found that children who practiced printing by hand had more active brains than kids who simply looked at letters.

印第安納州研究員的另一研究發現，練習寫字的孩子的大腦，比只看不寫的孩子更為活躍。

It's not just children who benefit from writing things out by hand, says a study in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. Adults learning a new language remember its characters better if they write them out by hand than if they produce them with a keyboard.

而《認知神經科學雜志》一項研究表示，不僅僅是孩子們受益于手寫。成年人在學習一門新的語言的時候，手寫比敲鍵盤更能幫助記憶單詞。

As more people spend their days on the computer, says neuroscientist P. Murali Doraiswamy of Duke University, “retraining people in handwriting skills could be a useful cognitive exercise.”

杜克大學的當人們神經系統學教授穆拉利 ·多雷斯瓦米教授聲稱，人們一天大部分時間都在電腦邊，“重新訓練人們的手寫技術，會是項有益的認知活動。”