Here’s a presentation I did on the spot with a center tear, and then how you can apply this angle yourself.
When I was in university, I literally never took notes. This is not to say I didn’t pay attention. I sat in classes and treated them as movies, or TED talks if you will. I still got decent grades, and eventually one of my friends sitting next to me asked me about it.
“Isn’t it proven that writing is better at cementing the information into your memory?”
I told him my issue with it is that I never read what I write anyway.
He replied, “No, I mean just the act of writing the information is enough to improve the probability of remembering said information.”
“Let’s do an experiment then, here’s a piece of paper. Write something down, and fold it and fold it again. I’ll ask you what the word is in a few weeks time, promise not to read the paper? Actually, you know what? I’ll rip it up so no one can read it, and you’re the only person in the world who knows the word,” I said, taking the billet from him.
I just did the normal handling as taught in Corinda’s 13 Steps. I make it a point to never look in the direction of the tear.
“Here, take the pieces without looking at them, and go throw them away in the trash over there,” I said. He did so. I told him to promise me not to write a copy of his “study note” while his memory was fresh.
Weeks go by, and I asked him if he still remembered his word. He grinned and said yes.
“I guess the writing method does work,” I said, defeated. “Technically, this word is in your memory bank now. I was reading something about analyzing facial cues to access information from memory banks…”
The rest is as you can imagine.
So how could you use this angle yourself?
As usual, you should adapt anything we say to your own purposes, but you could start it off as a context-free challenge. Ask your friend if they believe that writing something down helps you remember it. They’ll likely say yes. Then say that you don’t believe that’s the case at all, and it’s why you don’t take notes. This will work as long as they don’t have reason to know that you do take notes, since they aren’t going to ask you to prove that.
Alternatively, you could see your friend taking down a note for something, and tell them you think they’re useless. Notes, not the friend.
Say you want to prove it, and go through the center tear justification.
When the time comes, if they remember the word you can admit defeat, but don’t move into revealing the word just yet. Insist that they not tell you, because you have something to look into. Refuse to elaborate. The next day, tell them that last night you read up on accessing information from memory banks…
If they don’t remember the word, you can help out without waiting a day, telling them that even if their conscious mind doesn’t remember it their unconscious should… and once you reveal it they should definitely remember. And be amazed.
Not only does this presentation justify them writing something down, but it also justifies why you rip it, why they throw away the pieces. This could also work with an impression pad, just have them rip the paper off, rip it up, and throw it away.
What’s fun is that there is no feeling that you’re doing an effect here. We were just giggling and joking around trying to prove each other wrong, and you can be trying to prove yourself right.