Why you should put your laptops away in meetings

Why you should put your laptops away in meetingsWhy you should put your laptops away in meetingsAs someone who grew up with computerssince elementary school, I dont feel nostalgia for the smell of ink orthe feel of paper. But when it comes to taking leides in meetings, I try to fight the lure of my laptop too. The sirens call of my laptops distractions just make it too hard to focus.Yes, Im jotting down notes but I have also been conditioned to click immediately on pushnotifications by a lifetime of laptops and engineers designing addictive featuresthatmake us want to drop everythingand click.Im unable to resist a ping, even if the email or Slack message is something that can wait.The pen is mightier than the screenA psychology science study backs upwhy the best thing to do is to surrender and shut down our screens during meetings and lectures. A 2014 study found that university students who took longhand notes were able to retain more complex information than students taking notes o n laptops.In other words, even though the laptop notetakers were able to type more information than the slower longhand notetakers, that information wasnt necessarily helpful.Both longhand and computer notetakers were able to recall facts, but the longhand notetakers were much better at answering conceptual questions that required analysis, like how do Japan and Sweden differ in their approaches to equality within their societies?In these type of critical thinking questions, the computer notetakers performed significantly worse.Longhand notetakers were also better at recalling information long after the lecture was over Even when allowed to review notes after a weeks delay, participants who had taken notes with laptops performed worse on tests of both factual content and conceptual understanding, relative to participants who had taken notes longhand.Researchers believed this is because laptop notetakers are more inclined to take verbatim notes instead of writing what theyre hearing in their own words. That hurts them. By summarizing, paraphrasing, concept mapping in their own words, the longhand notetakers were able to make deeper connections to the text than the shallower processingverbatim copying gave laptop notetakers.The optics of staring at a screen in a meetingEven when I am writing relevantnotes on a screen, Im aware that looking down at a screen and not at my colleague makes it seemas if Im not paying attention.As journalist Kim Bui wrote in her management newsletter, longhand notes not only help you focus, they also help everyone around you know that you have their undivided attention I realized people assumed when Iwas typing on my laptop that I was texting or Slack-ing. Now I only bring my phone and notebook unless Im presenting something. It signals that I am all in, totally present and relieves me of distractions (Slack).In todays pitch meeting, I did not bring my laptop, and though I felt the itch to type and I dont enjoy the look of my scraggly handwriting, I noticed that it forced me to listen and be fully present to my colleagues.I use my laptop in every other facet of my job, but when it comes to notetaking, I concede to the superior power of paper and pen.