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I have an ipad pro and sometimes I like to write on it, and sometimes I like to write on paper. However I have done experiments where I would study for exams only on the tablet, and other times I would study for exams only on paper. The result for me was that when I studied only on paper, the study would result in a higher mark.

However I would not like my question for the community to be subjectively biased, I am interested if anyone found a correlation between their results (for example: GPA,.., etc.) when started using a digital note taking device (before using paper).

I found this study, and I became worried if my electronic tablet use is impacting my performance: https://neurosciencenews.com/hand-writing-brain-activity-18069/

(Full research paper: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbeh.2021.634158/full)

Did anybody had similar observations?

VLC
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    This might be better suited for the "Mathematics Educators" stack exchange, which can be found here: https://matheducators.stackexchange.com/ – Milo Moses Aug 06 '21 at 16:43
  • @MiloMoses My question is more regarding individual studying, not educating a group of people and using an electronic device. – VLC Aug 06 '21 at 16:44
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    If you believe that this is the correct forum for you, then by all means keep the question here. To me at least, when I am on stack exchange mathematics and I am writing and answer I want to write about math, not myself or my GPA. Mathematics Educators has many questions about education that require the answerer to go into details about their own experiences, and so from the experience of somebody answering this feels more like Mathematics Educators than Math.SE. – Milo Moses Aug 06 '21 at 17:26
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    @Milo Moses - I agree with the poster that it is interesting to hear about the experience of general people studying Math and not just educators. That’s why I also think this suits this forum. – NL1992 Aug 08 '21 at 06:29

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I believe that the consensuses is unanimously that physical notes provide a better chance of doing well than digital notes. However, this seems to be for a variety of reasonings.

Reason 1: Electronics are distracting.

According to this Scientific American article:

In one study with law school students, nearly 90% of laptop users engaged in online activities unrelated to coursework for at least five minutes, and roughly 60% were distracted for half the class.

Reason 2: Digital notes are so easy to take, that it's almost an unconscious process.

According to this NPR article:

"When people type their notes, they have this tendency to try to take verbatim notes and write down as much of the lecture as they can," Mueller tells NPR's Rachel Martin. "The students who were taking longhand notes in our studies were forced to be more selective — because you can't write as fast as you can type. And that extra processing of the material that they were doing benefited them."

Counterpoint: Students seem to find digital notes "very helpful".

According to this BBC article:

A 2019 study from Helsinki where medical students were given iPads, found that students found them very helpful [...] But even though the devices were popular, the students’ performance with and without them wasn’t measured, so we don’t know what difference it made to their marks.

Personally, in my education, in the classes I took digital notes on (for me it was a laptop, or a even one of those fancy Rocketbook Smart Reusable Notebooks) I did significantly worse on. Objectively. I failed every class that I solely used a Laptop, and passed every class where I solely used physical notes. Ever since, even in my spare time, I take physical notes as much as I can. Although this may not be the case for other disciplines, I find it imperative that the discipline of learning Mathematics should be done with pen on paper. This is coming from someone, myself, who was born into the world of technology from the start; so I've had a huge bias to use technology in my classes, despite the fact that it may have destroyed my GPA.

Graviton
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I have never conducted such a study on myself, but I have noticed that trying to write down my ideas’ main points was better off when I used a computer/tablet, and experimenting and sketching seemed to have worked better when using paper.

NL1992
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I never studied for a test and I took notes in class that I never looked at afterwards. I would often also start working on "problems" before class was over and, perhaps, recopy them for homework. What is the point?

We all forget things we are taught very rapidly but the rate of forgetting levels off with time "AND" the rate levels off with recitation. Taking notes is a form of reciting what you have just "learned" and the sooner you recite, the higher the leveling-off is on the forgetting-curve.

I have a theory that we also benefit from the tactile component of handling paper. I even hate reading things on a screen because it is harder to focus my eyes and harder to keep track of where I am on the page. I refuse to read books on kindle, preferring hardcover books that I can lay on my nightstand after reading in bed. The feel is satisfying and I can move the book to suite my eyes easier than I can do with a tablet.

On the other hand, maybe it's just more work doing homework or taking notes on paper and the exta effort pays off in memory.

poetasis
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  • I see, so basically you are saying that it might be more productive to write notes on paper, but that benefit is so small in comparison to spaced repetition, that in the end it doesn't matter where you get the information into your head as long as you recite the material in your head. – VLC Aug 08 '21 at 14:38
  • But writing in paper might set us off into a longer forgetting curve than a tablet. I am really curious, if there is anybody who thinks that retaining off a screen is more beneficial. – VLC Aug 08 '21 at 14:42
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    I never used spaced repetition for anything except a language lab in Spanish and I never crammed for any test because I was working half time while taking 19 hours in college. Also, as I said, I never looked back at my notes. The physical act of writing them was enough to make the curve level off at say $90%$ instead of $10%$. – poetasis Aug 08 '21 at 19:01