Although the doodle is treated as if it were a natural, spontaneous and universal phenomenon, it is in fact an invention, a concept that emerged at a certain point and rapidly became extremely popular. There are a number of possible reasons for this: the spread of literacy and the bureaucracy associated with it, the emergence of graphology (at its peak in the early 20th century), the diffusion of psychoanalytic ideas about free-association and unconscious thought, and an interest—half admiring, half malicious—in the careless drawing of celebrities (politicians, actors, writers). Of course marginal drawings in manuscripts and books have a longer history, though we can only guess at what prompted them; but the doodle has a specifically modern psychological slant to it.

I'm sorry for the drawing. It was mY firsT ever doodle, that's why.