Blog

Aqsa Baig

The question that is of importance in today’s world where technology is becoming an integral part of everyone’s lives is if there is still room for notebooks?
Educational institutes in today’s time are making use of laptops in inclusion to the use of notebooks. Students are shifting to writing on electrical devices over notebooks. No one saw this shift happening. However, notebooks are very important. As a student, I still prefer writing in a notebook over a system. I think most students still do.
There is something about a notebook. Children start using a notebook at an average age of 5 years. It becomes an individual’s safe place. From penning down their thoughts, and creativity to use it for educational purposes, a notebook has become a necessity for everyone. It is where anyone can grieve, vent or note down a happy memory. It is where we untangle our lives. For me, notebooks have become an extension of me where my pen crosses the pages every single day. I share, I model, I write, we all write!
Notebooks bring back memories. A long time ago, I remember my school teacher wanted all notebooks to look the same and have creative titles. She wanted every page to be filled with the thoughts of her students. She made notebooks a place where we could doodle, list words and maps and write down what we understood from the lessons we learned. It became a default place for us to express all our messy thinking, scribbles, doodles and creativity.
Every year we begin a blank notebook and fill it up with everything necessary. These remain with us for a long time. I still have some of my old notes from the past 10 years. The nostalgia this gives is fantastic. We cannot get the same feeling over notes made on a laptop, where we delete it when we do not require it anymore. There is no scope of doodling in the middle of a page using the laptop. Having a notebook is a pure happy feeling on its own.
Notebooks have changed over the years, to more creative designs that have a uniqueness to them. Each note book has its own attractive quality that is of choice to different individuals. There are different designs to solve everyone’s expectations. Each notebook becomes a reflection of an individual. It shows their thinking and is a collection of their memories and ideas.
A notebook is a place to collect thoughts and ideas, a place to record memories, a place to take risks and a place to play. No electronic device can replace the feeling that a notebook gives to an individual, especially to a student on the first day of school folding open a new book and waiting to jot down in it.