Digital VS Handwritten Notes — What Will Win?
Since we are switching to a paperless office, it’s time to sort things out and discover whether digital notes are as effective as handwritten ones!
If you’re still using paper sheets and notebooks to create to-do lists and quick memos, this information is for you! Let’s see what are the best benefits that digital annotations and records offer to 21-century users.
Why Do People Take Notes?
The answer is simple — people take notes to remind them of vital information. Should someone tell you that they remember everything without memos, don’t believe them!
According to the statistics by Professor of Cornell University Walter Pauk, that he collected from his students:
- Students forget about 47% of a lecture in 20 minutes.
- In 1 day, they will forget 62% of its contents.
- In 2 days, 69% vanishes from their memory.
- In 78 days, 78% of the content information is forgotten.
Notes can refresh the memory with something that may have been already forgotten.
Miracles of Memory
Scientists have been researching human memory for a while and most of them agree that writing down the information by hand helps people remember it better. The cause for that is a set of active cognitive functions involved in writing. Handwriting is a complex process consisting of verbal, visual, and tactile components.
Let’s now see the pros and cons of both note taking options
Winning Points for Handwritten Notes
Better Memorising
Though people write slower than they type, which can affect the productivity and pace of work, they can benefit from it, in the long run. Handwritten notes are memorised slightly better, because our brain has enough time to process the information.
Still, this doesn’t make handwritten notes the best option, as in most cases, you don’t need to keep all this information in your head. Especially in the case of modern employees who process tons of data daily. If we remembered everything passing through our heads every day, we’d just go crazy in a week!
However, as an example, writing abstracts for students is crucial, as not only does this help memorise more information (which has been proven by Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer, US researchers) but it also develops interneuronal connections in the brain which creates a better memory.
Getting Thoughts Organised
Jared Horvath, Educational Neuroscientist from the University of Melbourne believes that handwriting helps people to organise their thoughts on the go. For example, in the same time taken, we can write only 5 words instead of typing 12–15 words. So, we get to understand the point of each phrase and write down its very essence.
“It’s the way handwriting forces you to organise your thoughts that leads to deeper processing”, Mr. Horvath says. So in brief, handwriting helps us perceive concepts but not context.
Better Engagement
While we’re used to typing automatically, handwriting engages all your perception channels and senses. Narrow focus and high level of engagement results in better learning, increased studying and better performance outcomes.
Also, engagement means involving both rational and emotional memory, which works even more effectively. People tend to capture moments when they were overwhelmed by some situations or facts, so they remember information better even in several years.
Typing Benefits
Speed and Efficiency
Though writing important data on paper means more chances to memorise it, you can’t write as fast as typing. This is a physical limitation that can’t be eliminated. Typing lists, memos, summaries, outlines, and other notes shouldn’t take as much time.
The research by Joel Myerson, Dung Bui, and Sandra Hale — Professors of Psychology at Washington University have proven the immediate benefit of digital notes. In this case, people “write down” more ideas in a given time frame, and their notes are structured better.
Editability
When you amend handwritten notes several times, the paper itself starts looking like a bunch of crossed-out text, which it is difficult to grasp the meaning from. Digital annotations allow you to keep documents clean and understandable.
Also, you can always re-think over your ideas and adjust the typed text. In Collabio, we have the Undo button or the Eraser tool for that. ;)
Shareability and Legibility
Teamwork is the goal and main driving point for most companies’ success, so sharing notes across all team members is crucial. Sure, someone can take a photo of handwritten notes and share with teammates but they still won’t be able to edit or comment on them unless they write comments in a messenger format.
Another issue is that everyone should understand what’s written in a note. Thanks to good-looking fonts, everyone can perceive the contents.
Golden Mean
With everything listed and mentioned above, we are introducing our handwritten annotations option in the PDF viewer. Collabio Spaces offers the unique tools to for those who like to quickly type and continue to meaningfully write text by hand in documents.
We are striving to help users be efficient and productive whilst both working individually and collaboratively.
Additionally we have our audio comments tool, which is gaining more popularity. It is hard to search specific keywords in lots of handwritten and audio comments, you can now record your notes and then use them for your convenience, and then turn them into text after.
Is Digital Handwriting Worth Your Attention?
We are combining better means for you to memorise and transmit the information. Here are the main reasons and benefits for doing this:
- Digital notes, be they typed or handwritten, can be edited and enhanced.
- Notes can be stored both on your device and in the cloud, which ensures their reliability. Nothing will be lost!
- Sharing notes in a couple of clicks is a great advantage for teams.
- Collaborative editing is a function that is coming soon within Collabio Spaces and will enhance your team work to another level.
- They can be searchable in a single format.
