The Science Behind “No Photos, Only Handwritten Notes”
This week, I taught three completely different rooms.
- A BCom class on Consumer Behaviour and Demand Analysis.
- A BBA class on Advertising Strategy, Brand Equity and Brand Positioning.
- And an MBA session on Decision Making – How Better Choices Build Stronger Careers.
Three subjects. Three sets of students. Three sets of ambitions.
And yet, in every room I gave the same instruction:
“Please don’t photograph the slides. Take handwritten notes instead.”
The reaction was remarkably similar.
A little bit of shock, followed by visible irritation – as if I’d asked them to give up their phones for a fortnight, not fifty minutes.
Hey, I get it.
Photographing a slide feels… efficient.
One tap and the information is “captured” forever, tucked safely into a photo gallery you’ll probably never open again.
Meanwhile, writing by hand feels slow, old-fashioned and faintly punishing.
Like being asked to churn butter when there’s a fridge right there.
The problem is that the phone camera doesn’t TEACH you anything – it just proves you were IN the room.
The Study That Started the Conversation
In 2014, researchers Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer published a study that became famous in learning science.
University students watched lectures. Some took notes on laptops. Others wrote by hand.
The laptop group wrote more – a LOT more.
They were much more likely to reproduce what the lecturer said almost word for word.
The handwriting group couldn’t; nobody can handwrite as fast as someone talks.
So, they had to make choices.
- What’s important?
- What can I leave out?
- How would I say this in my own words?
When the students were later tested, the researchers found that laptop note-takers performed worse on conceptual questions – the “why” and “how” ones.
Their explanation was interesting: typing made it easier to transcribe.
Handwriting forced students to process and reframe the information.
BTW, the paper had the memorable title The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard.
But here’s an important qualification.
Later researchers who replicated this test had mixed results.
So, the evidence doesn’t justify saying that handwriting is always better than typing.
The more useful lesson is… How you take notes may matter more than what you take notes with.
Why Slow Can Help
When you photograph a slide, almost no thinking is required.
Point. Tap. Done.
When you write notes, you can’t capture everything.
That inefficiency can be useful.
You have to… Listen. Choose. Shorten. Rephrase. Connect the new idea to something you already understand.
Difficult? Yes! But that difficulty is the good type!
Learning scientists sometimes call this kind of useful effort a desirable difficulty.
A little friction now can help learning later.
You’re no longer simply recording information – you’re processing it.
You’re not the stenographer – you’re the editor.
Typing itself isn’t necessarily the enemy.
If you type selectively, summarise ideas and put them into your own words, you’re doing much of the same mental work.
That makes even typing better than clicking!
There’s Another Benefit: Attention
There’s something wonderfully inconvenient about a notebook.
- It doesn’t have WhatsApp.
- It doesn’t suddenly tell you someone liked your Instagram story.
- It doesn’t contain YouTube.
- And it has never once interrupted a lecture to announce: “You may also like…”
A phone may begin as a camera and very quickly become something else.
You unlock it to photograph a slide.
There’s a WhatsApp notification.
You check it.
Then another message.
Then perhaps Instagram.
Thirty seconds later, you’re down the rabbit hole watching a golden retriever refusing to leave a swimming pool.
The lecturer, however, is still explaining price elasticity of demand.
You, meanwhile, have travelled quite some distance.
This isn’t about you, or a character flaw. It’s what devices designed to compete for our attention are exceptionally good at doing.
Different Content. Same Brain.
What fascinated me this week was that this principle didn’t care which classroom I was in.
- The BCom students were taking notes on demand curves.
- The BBA students were mapping brand positioning.
- The MBA students were working through decision frameworks.
Different content. Same brain. Same problem.
And it isn’t only students who need to be reminded of this.
I see the same thing in workshops and boardrooms.
At the end of a strategy session, someone photographs the whiteboard.
There’s a small feeling of accomplishment.
The idea got “saved.” It just never got learned.
Six months later, that photograph is somewhere between a restaurant menu and a picture of somebody’s dog.
The information was archived but not necessarily absorbed.
So, Should We Ditch Tech?
Of course not!
I’m hardly anti-technology – my own slides live on a tablet.
Digital tools are brilliant for storing information.
- Sometimes you need an exact diagram.
- Sometimes you need the numbers on a table.
- Sometimes you genuinely need something for future reference.
Photograph it. Save it. Archive it.
But ask yourself one question: Am I trying to STORE this information, or am I trying to LEARN it?
If you need to preserve something, capture it.
If you need to understand something, process it.
Write down what matters.
- Put it in your own words.
- Draw an arrow.
- Circle something.
- Add a question mark.
- Write “THIS IS IMPORTANT” in unnecessarily large letters.
- Argue with the lecturer… in the margin!
Do anything that forces your brain to engage with the idea rather than merely store a copy of it somewhere.
That’s the distinction I want my students to understand.
Not: Phones bad. Notebooks good.
But: Capturing isn’t learning.
So, the next time you’re in a lecture, meeting, conference or workshop and feel the urge to photograph every slide, try this instead:
- Put the phone away.
- Pick up a pen.
- Listen.
- Think.
- Then write down what you think matters.
Not because handwriting is nostalgic.
Not because technology is bad.
And certainly NOT because lecturers enjoy watching students struggling to write.
But because the fastest way to CAPTURE information isn’t always the best way to LEARN it.
We’ve built extraordinary tools that can remember almost everything for us.
The more important question to ask ourselves is: What do we still want our own brains to remember?
You may capture fewer words on paper.
But understand far more in your head.
Well, now you know it too!
(What’s been your experience? Do share. Maybe you have a better system that we all can learn from!)
