The act of journaling has existed for thousands of years and has been an effective way to reflect on the past, comprehend the present, and plan for the future. While we recognize the value of taking a break from apps and putting pen to paper, there's also a lot of value in handwritten journaling as well. At the end of the day, the goal is to create a regular habit. The outcome you should be aiming for is habit creation - it's up to you to pick the method that works best for you.
1) A break from the digital world:
Many people find analog journaling to be an effective counterbalance to the time spent online. As someone who spends quite a bit of time online everyday, it's important to take a break. I can certainly understand this point. Additionally, when using a paper journal, there's no distractions, notifications, or open browser tabs begging you to visit them.
Paper journaling is much more expressive. You can draw, doodle, and format it any way you'd like.
3) Writing things down has benefits:
Writing improves retention and studies have shown that improves mental well being. While your left brain is occupied,
your right brain is free to do what it does best, i.e. create, intuit and feel. In this way, writing removes mental blocks and allows us to use more of our brainpower to better understand ourselves and the world around us.
4) Hand-writing is powerful:
Studies have shown we remember more when we write by hand and, because it takes longer, it makes us slow down and process what we’re writing.
5) Less Clutter, easy to use:
With handmade journaling, you can pour down your thoughts in any manner, right from quotes to pictures to doodles. Also, you have the liberty to write as much as you want, with no character limit and no spellcheck pop-ups, making it less cluttered and easy to use.