Where do you turn when you need to take notes? Do you take out a notebook and scribble on it by hand? Or do you pull out your laptop and type notes the stylish way with a keyboard? Both staunch Luddites and digital natives have found support in the academic debate about the most efficient ways to record and retain information.
According to popular wisdom, the mechanical process of manually transcribing information takes precedence. In this simple analysis, the interplay between the physical and mental tasks required to put pen to paper and record a thought creates a more lasting impression on the brain. Just as the tip of a pencil leaves a mark on the sheet below, the task itself writes certain information into our gray matter in a way that keystrokes simply don’t.
There is something to this notion—formally known as the coding hypothesis. A 2020 brain-tracking study found that when subjects were asked to handwrite or draw a word, there was synchronized activity in areas of the brain involved in visual and language processing, which are thought to be key in memory formation. Activity in these brain regions was desynchronized when the subjects typed the words, suggesting that they may not be encoding the information, at least not in the same way.
Andy Boxall/Digital Trends
But a number of other studies have shown that it’s much more complicated than that. The type of information we record and the ways in which we are expected to recall it have an impact.
Perhaps the most prominent study on the effectiveness of manual versus digital note-taking was published in Psychological Science in 2014. The authors found that although computer note takers took more notes in a given lecture and were more likely to have verbatim transcripts of their notes, they were less able to synthesize complex concepts when later tested on the content. In one of the experiments, they also did worse on factual questions, even when they had a chance to study their notes before the test. This was true even when they were specifically instructed to avoid taking verbatim notes, which would supposedly encourage them to condense and thereby encode information.
The findings thus challenged the competing external storage hypothesis, which suggests that the greater amount of notes taken by computer users may allow them to review content more thoroughly and later encode it. Other studies attribute the lower effectiveness of typed notes to the range of distractions available on a laptop and the shallower processing required to enter information verbatim rather than summarizing it on paper. Numerous studies have shown that classrooms that allow the use of laptops have a reduced grade, and those that prohibit it have an improved grade. And a 2012 Pew Research report states that nearly 90% of teachers see technology as a factor in creating shorter attention spans.
Andrei Zaripov/123RF
So those are handwritten notes? Not so fast. A 2019 replication of the 2014 study suggests that the difference in retention between the two recording methods is not nearly as large. Although several experiments showed small advantages over manual recording, the authors did not consider them to be statistically significant. Both factual and conceptual performance were approximately equal between both groups. And a 2012 study found that students who transcribed lectures on their computers actually had better immediate memory than those who wrote their notes on paper. Additionally, the authors found that direct transcription resulted in greater recall than structured note-taking—contrary to the idea that synthesizing information as it is presented results in better retention.
Other attempts to qualify these two approaches have also challenged the encoding hypothesis. A 2016 study found that when students were asked to transcribe a series of letters and sentences by hand or typing, recall was better among computer users, but recognition was better among a handwriting cohort. That is: Reciting data from memory was easier for those who typed their notes, but correctly identifying the same data when it was displayed again was easier for those who wrote it. Another study from the same year showed that handwritten notes resulted in better recall. Students who use pen and paper are more likely to replicate pictures and diagrams in their notes, simply because it is easier to do so using that method. This achieves a more comprehensive understanding of the content.
Kyle Wiggers/Digital Trends
Ultimately, we don’t know which approach is better. And as students and adults alike move away from manual note-taking and adopt fully digital strategies, that could be a moot point. Perhaps a better question is how exactly to optimize a computer for taking notes. Some have suggested that using a stylus to write on specialized tablets could bridge the gap. However, widespread adoption of this approach seems unlikely.
It is worth noting that much of the research on this topic has been conducted in educational settings. These intense learning periods are unique to most of our lives — we may have the occasional seminar, meeting, and training session, but they probably don’t match the intensity of information absorption expected of us during our school years. This is reflected in the percentage of students who write notes during class: around 96%. Can we say the same about the information we take in day to day in our personal professional lives? Probably not. And of course, our minds change as we age; they become less flexible, less receptive to new ideas. Still, this series of seemingly contradictory findings points to the complexity of how our brains process and integrate new facts and ideas. And they probably relate, if not exactly, to how we continue to learn throughout life.
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Source: newstars.edu.vn