Dividing people into subtypes based on their dominant perception — auditory, visual, and tactile — has always felt a little wrong to me. Sometimes, kinesthetic is added into the mix. This subdivision is often applied to learning styles. Do you learn better when you look, listen, write (or is it doodle? take notes?) or do things by hand? (See EducationPlanner as an example.)

I thought of myself as mostly auditory; maybe because I liked music, I was a DJ, and I wanted to be in touch with my hearing/listening perception. But then, who isn’t a visual type? We all perceive information better when presented in a diagram or with similar visual aids, than when listening to it — in numbers, especially. And touch. Isn’t touch important to me? Oh, it is, no doubt about it.

So, by attributing yourself to one of the senses, you’re robbing yourself of everything else. We are multi-faceted. Everything is important. It is unnecessarily limiting to stick to what you think is right for you, without exploring other things that could be equally or more beneficial. This attribution to one of the senses is supposed to be a hack, and instead, it does not benefit you. You don’t learn faster, better and stronger by focusing only on one type of skill or one sort of exercise. You can’t train just one muscle. You can’t learn a language by only learning grammar, or not learning grammar, for that matter. You have to, and you inevitably will, engage all senses that are available to you.

As I’m googling the subject more, I find articles, including this one from American Psychological Association, debunking the myth of learning styles:

“Previous research has shown that the learning styles model can undermine education in many ways. Educators spend time and money tailoring lessons to certain learning styles for different students even though all students would benefit from learning through various methods.”

As much as our brain loves categories and simplifications, we should not be depriving ourselves of a broader outlook. There is no simple hack: do this, and get the ultimate result. You have to do this, and this, and that.