The Wikipedia article on doodling seems to contradict much of what Sunni Brown says. Read the article and test out your own theory about doodling.

Is the employee who doodles at office meetings a goof-off who's neglecting his or her responsibilities? Or is he or she actually exercising something that could be called "Doodle Diligence"? A question this morning for our Lee Cowan: How many of us, when we let our minds drift, find that our pencils drift right along with it? To the doodler, the canvas can be anything -- a napkin, a margin, a soon-to-be-discarded envelope. Yet for all its ubiquity, the doodle seems to be the artistic equivalent of Rodney Dangerfield -- it just gets no respect. See more here.

Check out all the TED-Ed Lessons that Sunni Brown has animated.