The Case for Handwriting Notes

“Our fathers’ age, worse than our grandfathers’, gave birth to us, an inferior breed, who will in due course produce still more degenerate offspring.”

Thus writes the Roman poet Horace in Book III of the Odes over 2,000 years ago. The idea that the next generation is going to be the one to really screw it up has endured for millenia. When thinking about the effects of modern technology, do we really have the hubris to claim that we have transcended an ancient fallacy?

Probably not. But we do have a bit of reason to be concerned.

The “Flynn Effect” is a decades-long trend of each generation displaying an average increase in IQ from that of their predecessors. However, during the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation hearing this January, neuroscientists testified on a reversal of the pattern: Generation Z has been underperforming in attention span, literacy, and numeracy.

Experts have correlated underperformance to the rise of digitized classrooms, beginning around 2010. Though isolating such a phenomenon to one specific cause is unlikely, insofar as we might be concerned about the effects of technology on our cognitive abilities, I pose one simple solution — choose to put away the screen, and pick up a pen.

Harvard courses have varied guidelines on the use of laptops in class — some permit the use of tech, and other classes ban laptops entirely. Irrespective of laptop policies, though, students must recognize the benefits of taking handwritten notes.

At the top of mind when discussing the digital revolution is shortened attention spans. Making the choice to use a laptop in class can only be described as opening Pandora’s box as attention in the next 75 minutes is split among dozens of tabs, no matter how diligently one tries to pay attention to note-taking. Intuitively, this issue becomes less pressing when taking notes by hand (unless one is a prolific doodler), but studies likewise suggest that attention is improved by taking notes on paper.

Old fashioned? Maybe. But if the cost of better quality learning is a throwback to pre-Apple learning formats, let it be done. Studies have shown that handwriting contributed “extensively” to the brain connectivity that promotes learning. Another published in the National Library of Medicine found handwriting allowed for greater word memorization.

Sure, there may be an inconvenience to it. Why bother taking out a stencil, jotting down sentences by hand, and going back to correct mistakes when one can just pull out a Google Doc? However, education ought not be forsaken for the lure of convenience.

Typing is easier, faster, yes. But why take notes at all if you aren’t going to retain what you’ve written? By writing, you are forced to process and prioritize what to put on paper. By typing, words go through your fingertips like a lightning bolt that dissipates once on the screen.

Still, students may have concerns about keeping up with content if taking notes by hand. Especially dense lectures create a pull towards the laptop, as students may find a faster typing speed being the only method to keep up with the information being presented.

To address the fear of falling behind, lecturers could consider chalk talks. In this format, the information being put out has a similar rate to the information being taken in by students. If instructors feel this does not allow them to cover the material necessary, they should invest in supplemental resources explaining concepts that take more time to digest in writing.

This reduces the pressure to record everything in lecture, allowing students to take time to comprehend what is being said. It allows synthesis rather than transcription.

Courses like Physical Sciences 11: “Foundations and Frontiers of Modern Chemistry: A Molecular and Global Perspective” have already put this into practice. The teaching team mobilizes to print packets ranging from lecture slides, problem sets, section notes, and lab manuals for students each week.

At the end of the day however, resources provided are futile if students do not use them. To walk away with a more thorough understanding, handwrite your notes. It is hard to save a generation’s attention, but it starts with saving ourselves.

Emily X. Yu ’29, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a Chemistry concentrator in Currier House.