Vindication!!

At school I'm notorious for my ability to play games on my laptop or doodle during lectures and yet still be able to participate in the class. My friends are always commenting on how one minute I'm playing solitare seemingly not paying attention and then suddenly I raise my hand and ask an on point question or respond to something the prof just said. I try to explain that it's like there are two parts of my brain. I must keep the one section distracted by games or doodling and then the other part can pay attention to the lecture. They just shake their heads at me when I say this, but it turns out there might be something to it. Time magazine recently ran an article about how doodlers seem to retain more information than non-doodlers.

"Why does doodling aid memory? Andrade offers several theories, but the most persuasive is that when you doodle, you don't daydream. Daydreaming may seem absentminded and pointless, but it actually demands a lot of the brain's processing power. You start daydreaming about a vacation, which leads you to think about potential destinations, how you would pay for the trip, whether you could get the flight upgraded, how you might score a bigger hotel room. These cognitions require what psychologists call "executive functioning" — for example, planning for the future and comparing costs and benefits.

Doodling, in contrast, requires very few executive resources but just enough cognitive effort to keep you from daydreaming, which — if unchecked — will jump-start activity in cortical networks that will keep you from remembering what's going on. Doodling forces your brain to expend just enough energy to stop it from daydreaming but not so much that you don't pay attention." (http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1882127,00.html?iref=werecommend)

So, there is a method to my madness after all...lol
Doodlers of the world unite!!