DON’T EVEN DARE TO OPEN THAT LAPTOP/NOTEBOOK!
Sitting in class now means being subjected to the sound of dozens of your classmates tapping away at their keyboard, repeating verbatim every word your professor says and every sentence that appears behind them on the slide show.
I’d consider myself the resident non-note taker in almost every class, or at the very least a taker of minimal notes. I once took three lines of notes for a class my friend wrote nearly three pages about. I found myself asking, is all this really necessary? Do we really need to fill our classrooms with the noise of keyboards and pages flipping to be filled with every thought or idea the professor expresses, thoughts and ideas most people will never read again? I don’t think so.
When you take notes, especially on your computer, and when your note-taking amounts to transcribing the words of your professor, there is evidence to suggest that this actually hurts your ability to recall and understand what was just said (yes really). They call it intentional forgetting. You enter a state where as you take the notes, your mind tends to forget what you just wrote.
You’ve probably found yourself doing it, while writing notes in class you suddenly come to realize you have no clue what you wrote down or what the professor said. You train your brain to focus merely on repeating what is being said and not to engage with it, leading you to completely forget the very thing you are supposed to be learning. It is worse when you type your notes.
Besides the fact that the sound of typing filling a classroom is one of my biggest pet peeves, typed notes are not only less helpful than handwritten notes. They are potentially less helpful than no notes at all when you factor in the ability to get distracted and intentional forgetting. How often have you, or someone you know, started taking notes on their computer, only to end up playing a game, scrolling through Reddit or Instagram, or doing something else?
Computers in classrooms are one of the biggest blackholes of attention, and when you mix this with ineffective note-taking that reinforces intentional forgetting, it is pretty clear that note-taking on your computer might actually be hurting you.
Note-taking can be an incredible thing, when you hand-write them, think critically about what you are writing, and do not merely repeat word for word the lecture slides or the professor. Note-taking can also feel stressful if you feel like you have missed something, do not know what’s going on, or get easily distracted.
The next time you are in class and you open up your laptop to type out the lecture, consider closing it, and actively listening and engaging, and if something sparks your interest write it down. I bet you will get a lot more out of that experience, even if it takes some getting used to.
