Note-taking: Paper vs Digital

By Jadon Hook

As someone who is a zero-waste advocate and environmentalist, I try to go against the grain with traditional items that “require” paper or other resources when they are easily made available digitally. This stands true for most items with some examples being online classes, course outlines, emails over letters (although I prefer handwritten letters) and most common being notes. I have tried to digitize my notes and type them out mostly due to my poor penmanship, however, I find I use these notes less than my traditional handwritten paper notes. Turns out there is research that backs this up.

However, there are many studies that prove that paper simply stimulates our brain more than digitized notes, reading, and studying which are 3 vital aspects to being successful as a student.

This study from Science daily details that handwritten notes are more effective for studying and understanding your content and handwritten notes engage more of the senses. The brain is more active, so the learning process is enhanced. This is part of an area of study called “haptics.” Researchers in this arena are studying the way our minds and bodies interact in the learning process. It’s the “tactile” or “kinesthetic” learning idea in action.

The more physically active you are, including taking handwritten notes, the more likely you are to remember information well. So, educational exercise and physical exercise are not as different as you may think. The brain, like the body, needs to be worked and stretched in order to grow and strengthen. While the saying, “No pain, no gain” is over-used athletically, it is undervalued in the academic world.

If handwritten notes really do engage more of the senses, and therefore more of the brain than typed notes, then wouldn’t it make sense to exercise more of your brain than less?

Why don’t more students take handwritten notes? Well, from personal experience legibility, speed, and clutter all come to mind. Having messy handwriting can sometimes make studying with those notes frustrating and when it is unorganized that can lead to missing key information. However, even with these cons to handwritten notes I still strive to take notes on pen and paper as I find they help me remember and understand the concepts I am learning!

So, we can all do more to reduce the amount of paper in our day-to-day, but still taking handwritten notes because they help you increase retention, knowledge, learning and growing in your field.