Benefit of Handwritten vs. Digital Note Taking

Here’s something I’ve been wondering recently: is it better to take notes by hand or with a digital tool?

Is there any clear benefit one way or the other?

I tend to do a little bit of both, I find digital notes have their benefits for certain projects - typically things that I’ll need to index or search in the future. I can also type faster than I can write by hand, so digital note taking seems faster for interviews and in person meetings where I need to capture key points.

I wasn’t surprised to find that there are actually some scientific studies that show the benefits of hand writing notes over typing or taking notes in any digital format, but I was quite surprised by just how many there are!

It turns out that writing by hand has significant psychological and physical benefits that may make it much more beneficial for casual note taking and journalling.

Improve your memory

Numerous scientific studies have shown that writing down things by hand improves memory and recall of the facts. Side-by-side comparisons of MRI data show that memory areas of the brain activate more robustly when things are written down by hand instead of recorded in digital devices. 

Some studies suggest that the fact that it takes longer to write things down by hand helps it encode in your memory and trains your short and long term memory as well. 

Increase comprehension

Studies have also show that hand writing notes increases comprehension. When you’re writing by hand, you’re more likely to summarise information and write it in your own words, whereas when you type notes, you can go faster and take down information word-for-word. 

While the speed of typing notes is a benefit, when it comes to truly understanding what you’re writing, slowing down appears to be significantly better. It’s also been suggested that longer notes (the kind you can take when you’re typing faster) aren’t necessarily better than the short notes you take by hand and summarise for yourself.

Make new connections and organise information

While it seems so much easier to search digital notes with the search function in any given tool, or to just being able to drag and drop files to organise them, studies suggest that hand writing your notes actually helps your brain make new connections within the information and get better at organising the information internally. You create your own organisational structures that make sense to you, not that are pre-determined or limited by a digital system. 

If you’ve ever had the experience of having a creative breakthrough while taking notes or doing free-writing, you’ve experienced this power of connection that can happen thanks to hand writing your notes. 

More personal connection

Finally, hand writing your notes can create a more personal connection to the information.

For myself, when I think about writing a to-do list, writing down goals and priorities, and recording the events of the day or week - typing or using digital tools can create a sort of distance between me and the information I’m writing down. But writing things in my own handwriting creates more personalisation and I’m typically more thoughtful.

There’s some research that suggests that the act of writing down your goals by hand makes them feel more real and more important. Something to bear in mind as we turn the corner to the New Year!

Portable and accessible

If you’re my age or older, you probably remember the darker ages when digital devices and programs didn’t always talk to one another well.  Opening a document on a PC that had been created on a Mac could cause a lot of trouble and irritation! 

While most digital programs and devices have greater interoperability these days, so now it’s about version support and maintaining access when you need it. Take the popular note taking software, Evernote, for example: you used to be able to access an Evernote account from as many devices as you liked, but now you have to pay an additional subscription fee for more than one or two devices.

Analog notes, on the other hand, are always available, always accessible, and never truly become obsolete. You might have notebooks from decades ago that you can open up and read just as easily today as the day you wrote down the information — whereas a decades old computer file might be nearly impossible to access. 

Charming little notebooks are also infinitely portable, and there’s never a fear that you will run out of charge or be unable to find an outlet when you need one! 

Whether you choose pen or pencil, notebook or loose leaf paper, giving hand writing for note taking a try and see if you feel a deeper connection with your subject, better retention and understanding of your notes, and all the other benefits of slowing down that hand writing can bring.