Technology is influencing education more than ever before with new innovations constantly changing the way students learn. The most significant of these innovations in affecting the daily lives of students is computer-based typing. Students are putting down their pencils and pens for this quicker and easier way to complete assignments.

“I prefer to type because it takes less work and auto-correct can fix your spelling,” 9th grader Abby Hedberg said.

“I only write by hand when it’s required because it’s easier and quicker to type papers and to complete assignments online,” she said.

Some students almost never write on paper anymore as nearly all essays and projects now are done on computers.

“For school related assignments, I type a lot more often than I write because it is more convenient and most of the time we are told to type anyway,” Hedberg said.

Typing is now commonly seen as a quicker and more efficient form of writing leading teachers to spend more time teaching students to type.

“When I was in the lower school, my teachers had us use Typing Pal. I thought it was really fun because it was an opportunity to learn a new skill,” Hedberg said. “I think that in a society that is rapidly developing and becoming more dependent on technology, typing is a more useful skill to students,” she said.

As students begin to predominantly rely on typing, they also begin to lose the benefits of writing by hand.

“I like handwriting when it comes to note-taking [because] it helps me to memorize more,” junior Erik Quillopa said.

Research shows that writing by hand increases memorization and comprehension of the topic. A study conducted by Princeton University’s Pam A. Mueller, and the University of California’s Daniel M. Oppenheimer, showed that students who wrote their notes by hand showed higher rates of conceptualization of the topics than those who typed their notes on laptops.

Having good handwriting can also be helpful for classes with paper assignments. Some classes like math, most often require handwritten work that must be legible for grading.

“I like to improve my handwriting because it used to be awful but it has gotten better over the years,” Quillopa said.

Writing by hand is also a useful skill to have for letters or any professional applications.

“You don’t want to write a letter and have it look like a kid wrote it, you want it to look professional,” he said.