With the growing presence of technology in our age and the way it is continuously evolving to fill all our basic needs, the question of what’s the difference between working traditionally versus working digitally is always on our minds. Some believe there is not much of a difference, but I believe there is a huge difference based on my own personal experience.

I have used my computer and other technology to do things such as take notes in class, write essays, journal and process thoughts, sketch ideas, and draw. I find when I type or draw digitally, there is always this unconscious fixation to write and be perfect in what I’m doing. Especially with the convenience of undo and redo, I always find myself trying to perfect my lines and my words. I believe this hinders me in reaching my greatest creative potential and tapping into my unfiltered self.

When I look at the greatest European master painters of all time, such as Rembrandt, they have only ever gotten messier and freer in their art as they aged. They might have started out drawing and painting very precisely to get all the structure and details and forms correctly, but afterwards, they strayed from that and tried to tap into the liveliness that embodied what they were capturing. They tried to capture all the senses into their art form. What I find is that in this generation of children, we have a tendency to be perfect and we are actually lacking the originality and imperfection that comes with experiencing and embracing our mistakes. Sometimes when we stunt our creativity and prevent ourselves to explore and think laterally enough before thinking vertically/critically. I believe that technology amplifies this tendency we have as children of the digital era.

As I use my computer to takes notes in class, I always find myself hitting the backspace button and trying to perfectly record everything that the professor is saying. However, that isn’t the point of note-taking. I am supposed to be writing down a condensed version what I am hearing and thus interpreting and shortening what I am hearing into note form. I believe this is a skill that must be built and a skill that technology has overshadowed. When I am writing by hand or taking notes by hand, I may not be as clean or as quick as I can be when I type, but I find myself being able to pay greater attention to the professor’s lecture and actually focusing in on capturing the essence of what they are saying. I believe that there is a different part of our brain that is accessed when we are typing or drawing digitally compared to doing this hands-on, and it is evident in the difference in words and especially in the way we draw.

When I sketch online on the iPad or using a tablet, I automatically draw neater and in a way that I can visually understand what I am seeing. Usually, this isn’t even something I think as much when I sketch in my sketchbook. My focus when I draw is to get my ideas out and put pen to paper so that I can visually capture what I am seeing or imagining in my mind. I think this desire is the same when I draw digitally, but there is something that is lost, an aspect of originality or spontaneity when drawn digitally because of the constraints and cleanliness that comes from the clean white blank screen with the tablet pen. Technology will always try to improve and upgrade the pen pressure sensitivity and brushes to mimic real-life mediums, but moving through real space to grab and hold your tools and feeling the pressure change as you use your whole body to move can never be fully captured through technology’s space limitations.

However, I must commend technology for everything that I put it down for. Technology has opened many doors in writing and art to precision, time-convenience, cost-efficiency, and many techniques that could not be available through working solely hands-on. From copying and pasting to word counting and editing, working digitally has given people the means to save time, money, and supplies by being able to fix their mistakes and going back to refine their work. Art techniques like linocut and screen printings can be mimicked through digital technology so artists are saved the extensive and costly process. Also, simple things like resizing heads to proper proportions through Photoshopping, or inserting words that you missed out as you wrote our your thoughts can save someone the trouble of going back and cleaning up their work. Some may say that that is part of the beauty of working by hand and it builds your skills by redrawing and rewriting the same thing over again, but in our fast-paced period of time, we do not have the time to spare on fixes minor details either.

All-in-all, I do find that there is a difference in working digitally versus hands-on and this difference can be seen in my sketches and work. Though I recognize and acknowledge all that technology has done for me, I know there is nothing like working and creating something organically through hands-on mediums and techniques. No technology can truly imitate and replace reality and handmade work. As an artist, I prefer working hands-on and though I would never restrict anyone from working digitally, I would highly encourage and even advocate working hands-on before working digitally. I would recommend working with physical mediums and on real paper to draw or write notes freely with any of the structure that comes from working digitally in order to experience and express the full extent of their creativity.