[NTLK] [OT] (Paper or tablet) and memory retention

[Gene Beaird]

Since I no longer _have_ to remember much at work, personally, typing onto notepad or textedit works fine these days.  When I was in school, the way I’d study for exams was to go to school after hours, invade a classroom, and continually write my notes/assumed answers to test questions on the chalk board.  I found that process helped me retain much of what I needed for exams.  It seemed to be a time-consuming, but successful method.

With many electronic solutions, while you may be thinking through what you’re writing, you’re also focused on the technology.  Did I save that correctly?  Did the machine interpret my handwriting correctly?  It didn’t?  I gotta fix that line!  Etc.

Regards,

Gene Beaird,
Pearland, Texas


> On Mar 23, 2021, at 2:00 PM, newtontalk-request at newtontalk.net wrote:
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2021 13:10:21 -0700
> From: Steven Frank <stevenf at panic.com>
> To: Fritz Toch via NewtonTalk <newtontalk at newtontalk.net>
> Subject: Re: [NTLK] [OT] (Paper or tablet) and memory retention
> Message-ID: <FFBB7140-FDAD-40B3-9136-6B6827E960AC at panic.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset=us-ascii
> 
> Although this isn't the first time I've read an article about handwriting being better for retention than typed notetaking (which I agree with), it _is_ the first time I've seen one that says pen & paper beats stylus & tablet.
> 
> Their observation that this may be because each digital "page" occupies the same physical space as the previous (or worse, that digital pages can be infinitely long) is quite interesting to me.
> 
> Steven