So That's Why We Doodle

"A Sketchy Brain Booster: Doodling"
Wired Science (February 26, 2009)

"Good news, doodlers: What your colleagues consider a distracting, time-wasting habit may actually give you a leg up on them by helping you pay attention.

"Asked to remember names they'd heard on a recording, people who doodled while listening had better recall than those who didn't. This suggests that a slightly distracting secondary task may actually improve concentration during the performance of dull tasks that would otherwise cause a mind to wander...."

Makes sense to me: and there's some data to back up the assertions.

I've been known to doodle: not extensively, and not 'artistically' - but now that I think about it: I tended to doodle in classes where the lectures were not quite riveting.

Amazing, what we're finding out about how the brain works.