Call it old school if you must, but I’ve always been a pen-and-paper person. I graduated from a small community college back in 2016 and chose to experience life a little before returning to college in 2021. Looking back on high school and college classes then, I don’t remember students taking notes on devices — at all.
I felt out of place in my first in-person class here at NC State. I distinctly remember walking up to the professor after class and asking if it was OK if I took my notes in a notebook. It sounds like a stupid question, but everyone else had laptops, leaving me to feel like an outcast.
I still proudly write all my notes down. But, the tables have turned, and I only see one or two students writing along with me.
The problem now isn’t feeling like I am not with the times. The problem is how hard it is to stay focused on every word spoken by the lecturer. Constant clicking, some louder than others, is all I hear in most of my classes. I assume some students prefer it and will say they don’t have any issues with distraction, but I know for a fact it’s a distraction for both the student typing and the student writing.
I have seen countless students hide their phones behind the screen, answering messages on the device itself, completely engaged with online shopping or working on another class. It doesn’t seem fair to either the lecturer or the student themselves. We should believe in giving lecturers our undivided attention. They deserve it, and we are paying for it.
It doesn’t just come down to paying attention and distractions though. What is more concerning is how well the student is retaining the information they are typing.
Recalling conceptual information is more prominent in students who take notes by hand, rather than students taking notes on a device. A psychological study shows both types of note takers do similarly well recalling certain factual information, but laptop users lack proficiency in recalling conceptual information. The study argues that students using laptops can benefit from this medium of note taking but also struggle with mindless transcription.
When taking notes by hand, you are actively processing the information being heard. This way, you are eliminating distractions, writing down key information in a way that you can remember, all while connecting concepts as you go. Not only can handwriting your notes benefit your memory of the subject but can also be a beneficial cognitive exercise to increase memory retention later down the road, as mentioned in The Wall Street Journal.
Ultimately, you can still do this with a laptop or another device, but the study proves how hard it is for most students to get away from simply recording everything. Having more words and more verbatim overlap doesn’t benefit the student in any way. So, when deciding to use a laptop for notes, it’s important to think critically about what to put down.
Many have grown accustomed to relying on technology to do all the work for us. Particular situations, like notetaking in college, need focus and reduced distractions. Writing down information is signaling to your brain — and respectfully to the lecturer — that what you are hearing is of high importance.
Using pen and paper for notes can benefit in many ways for students and young professionals, along with reducing distractions for the self and others. Maybe it’s time to ditch the laptops in class and dust off those notebooks.
