From NPR:
ABOVE: President Obama's doodle, sketched as part of a "National Doodle Day"
Bill Gates is a doodler, and he's not alone. Lyndon Johnson doodled. Ralph Waldo Emerson doodled. Ronald Reagan drew pictures of cowboys, horses and hearts crossed with arrows. Most of us doodle at one point or another. But why?
To understand where the compulsion to doodle comes from, the first thing you need to do is look more closely at what happens to the brain when it becomes bored. According to Jackie Andrade, a professor of psychology at the University of Plymouth, though many people assume that the brain is inactive when they're bored, the reverse is actually true.
"If you look at people's brain function when they're bored, we find that they are using a lot of energy — their brains are very active," Andrade says.
The reason, she explains, is that the brain is designed to constantly process information. But when the brain finds an environment barren of stimulating information, it's a problem.
I agree! Not only do I do my napkin drawings, which you have mentioned before, but I also have brought a sketchbook to church for almost 20 years. I draw in it most every Sunday while I listen to the sermon.
Sometimes the drawing is about the sermon topic, but it might be the person's head in front of me, or just something completely off topic. But I find I have much better retention of what was said than either my wife or daughter who don't doodle.
You can see some of them in my 'drawing' section of my website.
Posted by: Marty Coleman, The Napkin Dad | March 20, 2009 at 09:31 AM