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Comment by s1artibartfast | Hacker News Reader

I think you are missing the point. Of course the buffer is the brain. the idea is to give the brain more time to process.

If you write a sentence per hour and a sentence per second, they will have different quality levels.

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I'm arguing that all of that processing happens prior to you picking up a pen or taking to a keyboard to write. I'm disputing the claim that there's materially more 'thinking' happening in the second or two longer it takes one to write a sentence with a pen than with a keyboard.

If you have ever sat down and written or typed for a hour straight, it will become clear that the thinking/processing wasn't all done beforehand. Thoughts can lead to new ones and flow from one to another.

Either way, in the absence of very compelling counter evidence, I'll defer to the expert opinion of the author on how their brain works

There's evidence that when you're studying something, taking notes by hand promotes long term retention of information better than typing them out. That is a case where the act of writing itself influences the thought process, and the use of one writing instrument or another influences it differently. It's wholly reasonable to believe that the choice of writing instrument may influence the thought process in other ways, too, and Stephenson has struck upon the instrument that works best for him.

Edit: the other salient concept which comes to mind is Marshall McLuhan's idea that "the medium is the message." McLuhan definitely believed that if you go and say something over broadcast media vs e.g. printed matter, what you say comes out very differently. Both the content and interpretation are influenced by the medium. He would probably agree there is a difference between typing and handwriting, too.

Edit2: there's at least one study which has found that handwriting engages more of the brain than typing does: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/new-study-suggests-handwriting...

Just give it a shot before your next reply.

It isn't something you have to do, but then it's clearly not something you do.

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