What is the best medium for note-taking- Paper or Digital?

Note-making is an integral part of our academic lives. As technology evolves, it alters our lifestyle, and such an alteration is evident in our classrooms. While previously, the pen-and-paper style of note-making was nearly universal amongst students, today they have the opportunity to choose from amongst a bunch of options. While many still swear by the tried-and-tested method of taking physical notes, others are gradually moving towards digital note-taking, where they either type notes onto their computers or tablets or use a stylus, which allows them to mimic the traditional physical style of writing.

But what’s the best way to take notes- manually or digital? Here’s what research tells us.

In a study by the University of Tokyo, researchers discovered that subjects who wrote on paper were not only 25% faster than the ones using digital media but note-taking by hand also considerably increases the rate of recall. They hypothesized that the brain is more active when you write on paper, resulting in an improved recall. The experience of taking notes on paper appears to contribute to improved memory.

An important factor that makes one better than the other appears to be its uniqueness. Note-taking on paper involves making uneven strokes on paper, each marking similar yet unique. The font and placing of words may vary more than in the case of digital note-taking. On the other hand, digital note-making involves writing on uniform ‘paper’ that disappears off the screen once you scroll up or down. The tangibility here happens to be transient, unlike in the case of physical pen-and-paper notes. Furthermore, paper-based note-taking seemed to engage several parts of the brain, including the hippocampus which is integral to memory.

Of course, this may change over time. With more and more software attempting to mimic the pen-and-paper style of note-taking, including more ways to customize our notes to make them unique, there may soon be no difference between the two techniques.

Reference:

Umejima, K., Ibaraki, T., Yamazaki, T., & Sakai, K. L. (2021). Paper notebooks vs. mobile Devices: Brain Activation differences during Memory Retrieval. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 15. doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2021.634158