Instead of pulling out a note pad and a pen or pencil, some students prefer to take notes on their laptop or other electronic devices. With a laptop, you don’t have to worry about your hand cramping, your pen running out of ink, or your pencil breaking. But is using a laptop in class truly the best way to learn?

Research shows that typing out your notes results in decreased comprehension of lecture material. It makes it harder to pay attention to the actual words if you are typing on a computer rather than writing notes by hand.

In a study done by Pam Mueller, a psychology graduate student at Princeton University, two groups of students were asked to watch a series of videos while taking notes. One group took the notes by hand, and the other group took notes on a laptop.

Both groups of students were then given a quiz that required them to know the key concepts of the video. The group of students who took notes on their laptop did significantly worse than the students who took notes by hand.

When students take notes on a laptop they are more likely to take verbatim notes. This leads to students not being able to comprehend the information because they are so focused on typing the information precisely, rather than summarizing it in their own words.

Not only do laptop note-takers negatively affect their own learning, they may also be affecting the learning of the students around them.

In 2013, a study showed that students who caught a glimpse of another student multi-tasking on a laptop performed 17 percent worse on a comprehensive test after the lecture.

I can’t count the times I have been distracted in class because students around me are busy scrolling through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or anything else unrelated to our class.

Electronics take away from learning and can be a distraction to others. Students may be better off just leaving their laptops and electronic devices at home.