With so much note taking apps nowadays, I can’t understand why does anyone still write notes with pen and paper. You need to bring the notepad, book or that paper to retrieve that information, and most of the time you don’t have it in hand. While my phone almost always reachable and you carry when you go out. For those still like to do handwriting, there’s many app does that and they can even convert it to text notes.
So, if you still write notes with pen and paper, why?
Here’s the biggest reason: we are evolved from savannah primates for whom the ability to make eye contact and hold it was a signal of “you can trust me, I’m not about to bite you.” Paper and pen don’t signal “I have decided to break this evolutionary/social contract” in the same way a phone or open laptop does.
I help mentor a lot of young people in early career and their generation with a phone is an excuse for an x-er/boomer interviewer to punt them waiting to happen. It’s career and comp limiting, right or no.
Also if one finds a taken note is missing something, contact the original party. A conversation that begins with: “you got me thinking about this more deeply and I think I may have missed something…” is the key to mentorship, advocacy, and growth.
In short from a transcoding of bits perspective, other media may be better. But for those they acknowledge human constraint and opportunity a nice notebook and (a cheap shill from me) a Lamy Safari medium nib fountain pen will do you quite well.
we are evolved from savannah primates for whom the ability to make eye contact and hold it was a signal of “you can trust me, I’m not about to bite you.”
Funny. Cats are the opposite. To them, unblinking eye contact says “I don’t trust you. I’m keeping my eye on you.” Hence the slow blink they’re famous for.
Paper and pen don’t signal “I have decided to break this evolutionary/social contract” in the same way a phone or open laptop does.
Why not? Either way, you’re breaking eye contact. When paper first became commonplace, people probably made the same argument, and there are photos of people on trains all looking at their newspapers and ignoring each other.
