How scribbling can help us concentrate

If you enter a classroom or a university hall, you will hardly find a table that is completely free of doodles. A few years ago, the small works of art even made it to an exhibition. The Technical University of Ostwestfalen-Lippe has collected the most beautiful table scribbles in recent decades. But what is it behind it when we scribble the notepad in lectures or calls during phone calls?

Perhaps – like me during school – they were admonished to listen better when a teacher caught her how she diligently painted small flowers, square or animals on the edge of the college block. But the accusation is baseless: “If you scribble, you are not necessarily inattentive, on the contrary. If we scribble in a lecture or when making calls, it can even increase concentration,” said Michael Minge, professor of innovation psychology at the Technical University of Ostwestfalen-Lippe

In one, psychologist Jackie Andrade examined how the doodles affect memory performance. The result: Kritzler: In the inside, in a surprising memory test, more information could remember more information than those who only listened. English studies show that the memory can even be increased by 30 percent during scribbling. Means: You can call up the content that you have recorded by 30 percent better if you have scribbled during the content. “We activate ourselves through doodles to process content and not to push them off with the thoughts.”

One of the learning methods of medical students shows how helpful it can be to scribble in order to remember large amounts of information. Only for 30 minutes on the block helps the students to better remember information.

Certainly there are no great works of art in the notebooks of most people, because those who only paint themselves are hardly concerned about motif and composition. And yet the doodles may seem to have more meaningful than some could think. On that, Dr. Robert Burns from the University of Seattle reported. He uses the drawings of his patients: inside to learn more about their emotional problems. In his view, the doodles can provide information about what is in the subconscious of the draftsman: inside.

Michael Ming knows why we particularly frequently scribble geometric shapes and flowers: “Anyone painting geometric forms is intensively dealing with a problem or question and trying to bring structure. The geometric figures can also indicate decision -making problems.” On the other hand, if you decorate the block sheet with flowers, you are either in a positive mood or want to put yourself in a positive mood through the small works of art.

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