Why You Should Handwrite Your Notes
Nowadays, it’s almost impossible to walk into a classroom and not find a sea of students using their computers to take notes.
While some may have academic accommodation, many just find the ease and convenience of using their computer too hard to give up.
While you may find it difficult to give up the convenience of having your laptop in lectures, below you will find 5 undeniable reasons to start writing your notes by hand.
1. Quantity Does Not Mean Quality
While some people think they’re being smart or cheating the system by transcribing every word the professor says or bringing in a recorder to record the whole lecture, however, they are just hurting themselves.
Research by two professors from UCLA and Princeton have shown that students who take notes on laptops do take more notes yet they retain less. With more notes, you’re retaining less during the class and leaving yourself with more information to memorize later on.
Besides, you’ve already gone to the class once, why force yourself to go to it again?
2. Laptops Are Distracting
Students that hand write the material are more likely to retain the information they’re learning because they’re more likely to be focusing harder on than material than their laptop counterparts.
By handwriting notes, students are thinking more intensely about the material being shared with them rather than students who are absentmindedly typing away at their computers.
In addition, it is easy to be distracted while taking notes when you literally have the world at your fingertips. Even just taking one peak at Facebook breaks your concentration and, thus, makes it more difficult to retain the information they’re learning.
3. Improves Comprehension and Recall
Writing notes by hand helps improve comprehension, recall, and retention. The conceptual processes evoked while taking notes by hand boosts performance through all topics.
Psychologists have found through research those who took handwritten notes were summarizing and synthesizing the key points allowing them to better understand the material than those who took notes on a laptop. Why work harder when you can work smarter?
4. Cultivates Creativity
When writing by hand, you are slowing down your body and mind to take in everything the professor is saying. By doing this, your mind tends to become more creative and create new ideas because you’re able to analyze the information more critically and think deeper about what you’re learning.
A study by Jane Vincent showed that writing by hand is more strongly linked to emotionally processing! Through emotional processing, you are then able to think more abstractly which leads to a more creative mind frame.
5. It’s Better for Your Memory
This may be one of the most popular reasons to handwrite but that’s only because it’s the most important!
Those who write out their notes tend to summarize and focus their notes on information that will help them remember what is being said. In addition, people who handwrite tend to give in more consideration on what they should write down.
The biggest issue with typing out notes is that students tend to write exactly what they’re hearing without even looking up from behind their screens. Due to this, they’re getting a very shallow understanding and cognitive processing of what the lecturer is speaking about.
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