Before 2000, the only practical solution for taking notes was to either annotate handouts provided by the teacher, highlight content in books, or handwrite notes on paper. Today, while paper notes are still popular, laptop computers, tablets, and phones are new ways to take notes. How do digital and handwritten note-taking compare?

While taking notes on a laptop may seem beneficial, those who type often tend to transcribe lectures rather than process information and rewrite it in their own words. Participants in both the handwritten notes and laptop notes groups of a study reviewed their notes a week later. Those who had taken notes using a laptop performed worse on tests compared to those who had taken notes by hand.

A study used three experimental conditions to compare note-taking methods: (1) handwriting with pen and paper, (2) laptop keyboard, and (3) typing on the screen of an iPad. For the free recall condition, participants in the handwritten condition had higher scores.

The authors noted: “with respect to aspects of word recall, there may be certain cognitive benefits to handwriting which may not be fully retained in keyboard writing.”

In a recent study, researchers compared longhand note-taking and taking pictures of materials (slides and handouts) with phones. In the first experiment, note-takers performed better than phone users and the control group. The phone users and the control group (who did not take any notes) performed about the same on recall tests. In the second experiment, which focused on concentration, note-takers were able to focus better and recall more content on recall tests.

The authors concluded, “Taking and reviewing photos of lecture content was just as ineffective as not taking any notes at all. Using one’s smart-phone to take photos is not necessarily a smart way of learning.”

Look At My Notes