New research suggests improving cognition might be as simple as putting pen to paper. A study from Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome suggests that handwriting “remains an important tool for learning and memory retention” – especially in young people.

The study analyzed a “wide range of neuroimaging and electrophysiological studies to understand how handwriting and typing affect brain function.” It found that handwriting stimulated a “broader network of brain regions” than did typing.

Audrey van der Meer, a professor of neuropsychology at Norwegian University of Science and Technology, told Drew Mariani that the complexity of writing assists in increased brain function. “When you’re using a keyboard, you produce only very simple finger movements that are the same for every letter that you want to type,” the professor said, “whereas when you’re writing by hand, you’re actually making…intricate motor patterns.”

Much of van der Meer’s research focuses on early childhood development. She notes that children who learn “to read and write on a tablet, have difficulty differentiating between letters that look similar, but are each other’s mirror image,” she explained during a recent presentation. That’s because the children who learn to read and write on a tablet have not “felt with their body” the production of a lowercase b or a lowercase d. “That will affect both their writing and their reading skills,” she said.

While van der Meer does not advocate a return to the Stone Age, she does recommend that students hand write notes when they can. “We definitely know that you learn more and you remember better when you take your notes by hand,” she said. In one study, 16-year olds who took their notes by hand got better grades than ones who typed their notes, she told Drew.

For her next study, van der Meer plans to study the benefits of handwriting in older people. Specifically, she will examine if the elderly who kept an entirely handwritten diary “fend off cognitive decline” better than “completely digital elderly people.”