Digital Transition and Mental Health in School Settings: Does Handwriting Still Matter? A Multidisciplinary Perspective
Abstract
Background/objectives: The digital transition in school settings is reshaping children's learning, writing practices, and mental health trajectories. This narrative review examines whether handwriting still matters in contemporary hybrid educational environments from a multidisciplinary perspective.
Methods: Evidence from neuroscience, developmental psychology, educational sciences, pediatrics, and child psychiatry was narratively synthesized, with attention to handwriting, digital exposure, learning, emotional regulation, and vulnerable populations.
Results: Handwriting uniquely integrates fine motor control, visuomotor coordination, orthographic processing, attention, and embodied cognition, supporting early literacy, memory consolidation, conceptual learning, and reflective writing. Conversely, excessive or poorly mediated digital exposure may interact with attentional fragmentation, sleep disruption, online stressors, problematic use, and internalizing symptoms, particularly in vulnerable children and adolescents. Digital tools remain essential for personalization, accessibility, and compensatory support, especially for students with neurodevelopmental or learning difficulties.
Conclusions: Handwriting and digital technologies should not be framed as competing educational paradigms. A developmentally sensitive hybrid model is needed, preserving handwriting during key stages of literacy and self-regulation while integrating digital tools as purposeful, individualized…
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