Close your eyes and picture this: An ancient Egyptian scribe, circa 3000 BCE, meticulously carving hieroglyphs into a stone tablet. Now open them and look around. You might see a student typing away on a laptop in a lecture hall, a business executive dictating notes into her smartphone, or maybe just your own scribbled reminders on a post-it note. Note-taking sure has come a long way over the past 5000 years!
But what do those ancient hieroglyphs have in common with that reminder to pick up milk you just jotted down? More than you might think. Since those early days in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, humans have been driven by a desire to record, retain and share information. Whether chiseled in stone, penned on parchment, or tapped out on an iPad, notes help us capture thoughts and knowledge so we can learn, remember and communicate.
So where did this whole note-taking thing begin anyways? Let’s hop in our time machine and take a quick tour through history:
So what have we learned from this whirlwind historical tour? Research shows that all this jotting, scrawling and tapping is actually changing the way we think, learn and remember:
The rise of digital technology is also changing the note-taking landscape in fascinating ways. Apps like Evernote and OneNote let us sync and access notes across all our devices. Collaboration tools like Google Docs blur the lines between personal and shared notes. And machine learning algorithms can auto-generate summaries from our notes or even create study guides for us. Talk about helpful!
But with all these digital bells and whistles, is the humble pen and notebook destined for the dustbin? Research shows that many people still prefer the simplicity and focus of writing by hand, without all those beeping, buzzing distractions. Some educators worry that students who type their notes verbatim are acting more like “stenographers” than active learners.
In the end, there’s no one “right way” to take notes. Whether you’re an old-school pen and legal pad type or an early adopter of the latest note-taking tech, the goal is the same: to capture ideas, boost understanding and create a “backup” for your busy brain. As long as we humans keep thinking and learning, we’ll keep finding creative ways to get our thoughts down for posterity – whatever the medium.
So the next time you scribble a note to yourself, take a moment to marvel at this wondrous technology that stretches back to the Egyptian scribes and beyond. We’re all part of a grand tradition of thinkers, scribblers and note-takers. But hey, at least we don’t have to use oak gall ink anymore.