Writing in Your Books Is Good for Your Brain—Here’s Why

Annotating the margins of books is an important part of deep reading and has a long legacy of merit in both science and literature

By Brianne Kane edited by Jeanna Bryner, September 19, 2024

Excerpt: "Readers on TikTok and Instagram are making the aesthetics of reading more visible than ever with creative, and often intricate, annotations. Called marginalia, these markups can be elaborate, with notes that nearly fill full pages and that are color-coordinated with the book’s cover. The emergence of such bookish note-taking has sparked a debate between enthusiasts and skeptics: Is the practice of marginalia a bad habit or a beneficial endeavor?

"#Marginalia have a long history: #LeonardoDaVinci famously scribbled thoughts about gravity years before Galileo Galilei published his magnum opus on the subject; the discovery was waiting under our noses in the margins of Leonardo’s Codex Arundel. Famous writers such as #HermanMelville and #EdgarAllanPoe are somewhat known for their marginalia, making their biographers both overjoyed and overwhelmed. Just last year #AnnPatchett, a staple on any modern fiction shelves, told Literary Hub about the joys of reading her own books and annotating patterns she never before noticed. She created a unique edition of Tom Lake for dedicated deep readers, in which she included her own annotations on her own writing style. The Patchett-ception worked: the special edition raised money at an auction for indie bookstores during 2020, and the endeavor inspired the writer to annotate a copy of her beloved classic Bel Canto as well.

"Alongside this evolution of margin additions, neuroscientists have been researching the cognitive effects of writing, pencil to paper. For instance, a study of electrical activity in the brain published in Frontiers in Psychology found that handwriting itself helps a person remember and understand more about they’ve read and written. Maryanne Wolf, director of the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners and Social Justice at the University of California, Los Angeles, discussed the importance of annotating with NPR in 2022. In classic former-English-major fashion, she paraphrased Marcel Proust in explaining that deep reading allows us to 'go beyond the wisdom of the author to discover our own.' In that vein, marginalia can help the annotator understand the material deeply enough to further develop their own interpretation of the text, she said. In the Journal of Language Learning and Teaching, foreign language professor Demet Yayli of Pamukkale University in Turkey, explained that in writing workshops, especially for genre-fiction writing, deep reading—which includes annotations—is critical in helping students articulate their interpretations and maintain their own 'learner autonomy.' "

Read more:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/go-ahead-write-in-the-margins-its-good-for-your-brain/

Archived version:
https://archive.ph/Bts8M

#LearnerAutonomy #ReadABook #UseYourBrain #AISucks #BrainHealth #UseAIWithCaution #AIIsDumbingUsDown #Bookstodon #Books

Does using #AI dumb you down?

by Willis Ryder Arnold, Meghna Chakrabarti, August 11, 2025

Excerpt: "CHAKRABARTI: ... Well, actually, Nataliya, before you do that, I do want to, I promise you, we will hear the final. I'm just like teasing, I'm teasing listeners today, but since both of you have actually mentioned handwriting, I do wanna just pause for a second and talk about that.

"Because in my personal N=1 of my life, I type every day like any normal person, almost all my writing is done through typing, but I don't know, I find myself that when I like, really want to remember something or it's of high value to me, I pick up a pencil or a pen.

"And somehow that embeds it more deeply into my brain, specifically my aging, working memory.

"So because of that, we actually reached out to one of the researchers that you mentioned who has done research on handwriting to understand like how we process information and think differently depending on how we're physically writing. And according to on Audrey van der Meer the answer is quite a bit.

"AUDREY VAN DER MEER: We actually looked at the connectivity patterns in the brain during handwriting and typewriting, and we found that the brain is much more connected during handwriting than it is during typewriting.

"CHAKRABARTI: van der Meer is a researcher and professor of neuropsychology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

"And in her research she used students, once again, the universal Guinea pig, as subjects. And it sounds like the experiment might've looked exactly how you'd think, but maybe with the fun twist.

"VAN DER MEER: They were wearing one of our characteristic electrode nets. Consisting of 256 sensitive electrodes sewn together as like a hair net on their heads, and they were playing the game Pictionary. So we presented Pictionary words on a large screen, and they were supposed to either write the word by hand, draw the word by hand, or type the word on a keyboard. And we recorded their ongoing brain activity while they were performing those tasks.

"CHAKRABARTI: And just like Nataliya's team did, van der Meer recorded that brain activity on an EEG, and she says the number of brain functions, visual processing, sensory motor integration, and the motor cortex are notably more engaged when writing by hand.

"VAN DER MEER: The brain does this through neural oscillations that can oscillate at different frequencies and in different parts of the brain and that kind, those kind of oscillations in the regions of the brain where we found activity are usually involved in learning and memory. So these kind of oscillations, they put the brain in a kind of state that makes it easier to learn from your handwriting activities and to remember what the notes were about.

"CHAKRABARTI: Writing by hand can also promote recall of experience in place because it helps cement memories that are unique to us. According to van der Meer:

"VAN DER MEER: Handwritten notes are very personal. When you then take them up in order to study for the exam, for instance, everything is coming back because it feels like you're back in the lecture theater again.

"And that's why sending your mate to a lecture to take notes doesn't work because notes, hundred of notes are typically very personal."

Read more / listen:
https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2025/08/11/ai-writing-chatgpt-study-cognitive

#AISucks #AIIsDumbingUsDown #AIResistance #Handwriting #BrainHealth #Datacenters #DumbingUsDown

So, taking off to run a few errands. I'm thinking that this afternoon/evening I'll be posting about a topic that's been on my mind for a while -- is #AI #DumbingUsDown? A lot of you won't be surprised at what the studies say. AI and #DataCenters are NOT worth the price to the #Environment or our #BrainHealth!

#AISucks #AIIsDumbingUsDown #NoNukesForAI #NoNukesForDatacenters #ElectricityHogs #WaterUsage #WaterIsLife #NoisePollution

Is #AI Making Us Stupider? This Study Certainly Thinks So

New research highlights the impact of AI on #CriticalThinking skills.

Posted August 21, 2025 | Reviewed by Michelle Quirk

Key points
- Using AI to do the thinking impacts not only quality of work but also the long-term acquisition of skills.
- AI can have a place in education, but it needs to be carefully employed.
- Employing AI is having a detrimental impact on our ability to think critically.

Excerpt: "A new study by #MIT has published initial results highlighting a likely connection between large language models (#LLMs)—colloquially grouped under the banner of AI—and a direct cognitive cost, particularly when it comes to our ability to think critically. They conducted a study using a pool of 54 participants, divided into three groups. The groups were asked to deliver an SAT-grade essay, with the first group granted access to #ChatGPT, the second to traditional #GoogleSearch, and the third with no search resources at all. Group 3 was referred to as the '#BrainOnly' group.

"Over time, each participant had to produce several essays, and each time was attached to an EEG to record brain activity across 32 regions. Consistently, ChatGPT users had the lowest brain engagement for every essay, and worryingly showed decreasing brain activity over time, as they progressed through the essay assignments. What this represents is the ChatGPT participants getting '#lazier' with each subsequent essay, with many resorting to copy-and-paste content by the end of the study. The study also recorded that this group 'consistently underperformed at #neural, #linguistic, and behavioral levels.' The findings make sense; with ChatGPT doing much of the work, it's easier on our #cognitive processes, and it is unsurprising that it takes less mental effort.

"Perhaps the more concerning aspect of the findings is the connection between #ReducedBrainActivity and impact on long-term learning and memory. As well as recording the participants' level of satisfaction, #curiosity, #creativity and #memory as part of the study—which were all high for both the brain-only and the search assisted groups (groups 2 and 3)—a later part of the study asked each group to reproduce one of their earlier essays, with the ChatGPT group asked to do so without access to any tools. There was little evidence of this group's participants remembering much of their previous essay, highlighting the very necessary link between #CognitiveEngagement and memory and, therefore, the potential impact on #LongTermLearning and gaining new skills. Conversely, and perhaps reassuringly, however, the brain-only group was then permitted to rewrite their essay with access to ChatGPT, with their efforts showing higher levels of creativity and stronger arguments, while retaining original thinking and unique language. This could present reassurance that, employed properly, AI has a place in enhancing learning without diminishing cognitive capability.

"Despite awaiting peer review and using only a small participant sample, the research team decided to release their findings in advance of peer feedback, in what they highlight as an urgent consideration of #LearningWithAI."

Read more:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-art-of-critical-thinking/202507/is-ai-making-us-stupider-this-study-certainly-thinks-so

#DumbingUsDown #AIIsDumbingUsDown #AISucks #UseYourBrain #CriticalThinkingSkills #EvaluatingSources #UseAIWithCaution