what happens to your brain when you write something down

• A recent side-by-side comparing of analog paper notebooks vs. mobile digital devices used fMRI neuroimaging to identify specific encephalon activation differences during memory retrieval.
• Analog notebook utilise activates multiple brain regions associated with optimal retentiveness-encoding (and subsequent retrieval) more than robustly than using digital devices, the researchers institute.
• Handwriting a detailed personal schedule can be faster and more than accurate than using a tablet or smartphone for the same data.
• Bringing a digital document to life with different colors, shapes, arrows, highlights, and other personal flairs may mimic some of the retentiveness-encoding benefits of handwritten notebooks.

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Handwriting your weekly schedule in a Filofax-similar appointment volume may seem archaic. Only new research suggests that analog personal schedules—written past hand in a newspaper notebook using pens, pencils, markers, and different colored highlighters—can outshine using a digital device for the same information in at least four unlike means.

This "newspaper notebooks vs. mobile devices" written report (Umejima et al., 2021) led by a team of researchers at the University of Tokyo was published on March 19 in the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience.

For this multi-pronged study, senior author Kuniyoshi Sakai, a neuroscientist at the Academy of Tokyo, and his Sakai Lab members investigated how writing down scheduled appointments in a paper notebook compared to inputting the data digitally into a mobile electronic tablet or smartphone.

This study's accomplice consisted of 48 Japanese university students and recent graduates (aged xviii-29 years). Study participants were randomly divided into an analog "Note" group that used paper notebooks for a semester's worth of daily schedule management, a digital "Tablet" grouping, and a digital "Phone" group. Both mobile "Device" groups typed their daily schedules into a generic digital device template.

"Participants who used a newspaper datebook filled in the calendar within nigh 11 minutes. Tablet users took xiv minutes and smartphone users took about sixteen minutes," the authors explain. "The duration of writing downward schedules was significantly shorter for the Annotation group than the Tablet and Phone groups, and accuracy was much higher for the Notation group."

One hour later filling out a relatively complicated personal schedule that included lots of unlike class times and due dates for assignments, the volunteers were asked to respond some detailed questions related to their personal calendar while inside a functional MRI (fMRI). This neuroimaging scanner measures increased neuronal activeness in specific encephalon areas based on increased blood flow to a particular cortical or subcortical region.

Four Ways Handwritten Notes on Paper Top Digital Note-Taking

1. Jotting things down on newspaper is faster.
2. Handwritten notes tend to be more accurate and have personalized flairs.
3. Handwriting in a notebook triggers more robust brain activity.
4. Writing by paw is associated with stronger neural encoding and memory retrieval.

In addition to being faster and more accurate, the fMRI neuroimaging data from this "paper notebooks vs. mobile devices" report suggest that the act of physically writing things downwards on paper is associated with more robust brain activation in multiple areas and better memory retrieve.

For example, during the memory retrieval phase, study participants in every group showed some degree of increased encephalon activeness in language-related frontal regions, the visual cortices, the precuneus, and bilaterally in the hippocampus. However, the researchers found that "activations in these regions were significantly higher for the Note grouping than those for the Tablet and Phone groups."

#1 Tip: Use Paper Notebooks for Information You Need to Larn or Memorize

Based on these findings, the authors speculate that "the complex, spatial and tactile information associated with writing by hand on physical paper is probable what leads to improved memory."

"Digital tools take uniform scrolling upwardly and down and standardized organisation of text and film size, like on a webpage. But if you retrieve a physical textbook printed on paper, you can close your optics and visualize the photo i-third of the way downwards on the left-side page, too every bit the notes y'all added in the bottom margin," Sakai said in a news release. "[Handwriting on] newspaper is more advanced and useful compared to electronic documents because paper contains more one-of-a-kind information for stronger memory recall."

"Our take-dwelling house bulletin is to use paper notebooks for information we need to learn or memorize," he added.

If keeping a digital calendar is more efficient in terms of sharing your schedule/availability with colleagues or coworkers, the researchers suggest that adding some unique shapes and colorful flairs to a digital document might mimic some of the "analog" benefits of jotting things down by manus.

The researchers' endmost advice: "Personalizing digital documents by highlighting, underlining, circumvoluted, drawing arrows, handwriting color-coded notes in the margins, adding virtual sticky notes or other types of unique mark-ups can mimic analog-manner spatial enrichment that may raise retentiveness."

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References

Keita Umejima, Takuya Ibaraki, Takahiro Yamazaki, and Kuniyoshi Fifty. Sakai. "Newspaper Notebooks vs. Mobile Devices: Brain Activation Differences During Retentiveness Retrieval." Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience (First published: March nineteen, 2021) DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2021.634158

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Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/202103/4-reasons-writing-things-down-paper-still-reigns-supreme

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