You are trying hard to pay attention to the speaker while your fingers, moving swiftly on your keypad, noting down every crucial point. A common scene in today's classroom or office meetings. Most people are putting their faith in technology, relying on typing their notes, and storing them in the cloud. Is this truly efficient? Considering the fact the one billion people use Google Drive alone, not accounting for the dozens of other methods of note-taking online, it seems like digital notetaking is the only logical solution. However, science speaks otherwise...
Given the popularity of Google docs, Microsoft Word, and other software and services, typed notes look "cool" and carry many advantages. Firstly, typing is far quicker and easily readable than writing. Other benefits include ease of editing, better formatting, and sharing options. As technology gets more advanced each year, digital note-taking is becoming inevitable.
Even though digital notes may reign superior for accessibility and sharing convenience, science favors the analog way. On the psychological level, handwritten notes have proven to help people remember information longer. Handwriting the notes involves the kinesthetic senses of the human body thereby building a better pathway to the brain. This naturally helps the note-taker to improve memory and focus. Lastly, the very disadvantage that our writing speed is much slower induces the note-taker to listen actively, think critically and analyze smartly to filter and write the crucial points. As a result, the rate of absorption of information increases tremendously.
Although handwritten notes will always be more engaging, more organized, and more memory-oriented, typed notes are becoming the new standard and will make handwritten notes a concept of the past. Whether this change is good or bad depends on the type of task, the level of focus required, and more importantly, the note-taker's choice. But, this is the time for you to think if technology is wrongly replacing the note-taking method, or merely making it more "convenient".
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