Nitpick: Figure 4f is an obviously incorrect regression line.
Paper vs. devices: Brain activation differences during memory retrieval (2021)
101–110 of 120 posts
Re: Paper vs. devices: Brain activation differences during memory retrieval (2021)
#102One side issue on these studies is there's currently no control group who spent their life solely on electronic devices. Even as tablets are distributed in school from the primary cycle, note taking and exams are all done on paper. This is not a value judgment on wether it's good or bad, just that any further study will be on subjects that spent their formative years writing on paper, they better learn to be good at…
Does it matter? I know you won’t prove “physical note taking is objectively better in every scenario” but you can still answer the question “which is better for humans who live and work today”.
Re: Paper vs. devices: Brain activation differences during memory retrieval (2021)
#103NB: this is a Japanese study. The participants wrote their notes in Japanese. If you write on paper, you need to write out each character by hand. In contrast, if you write on a tablet or other device, the input system will sort of "autocomplete" for you. Therefore, more cognitive effort is required to write on paper than on device. It is fairly accepted that greater cognitive effort (either to encode or to retrieve)…
> If you write on paper, you need to write out each character by hand. Exactly like English or French. You also need to remember the correct sequence of letters (see my remark below). > In contrast, if you write on a tablet or other device, the input system will sort of "autocomplete" for you. Exactly like English or French. I didn't write half of the letters used to type this comment. I think you are searching for J…
Character amnesia is a unique phenomenon to hanzi/kanji and is absolutely incomparable to English and French orthography. Native Chinese and Japanese speakers learn characters largely through muscle memory, which deteriorates rapidly if you don’t regularly write by hand. Many university-educated adults are unable to write a supermaket shopping list without hesitation.[1] Conversely, in English I learn difficult spellings (Gloucestershire, syzygy, rhythm) by aural-mnemonic tricks which stick around in my memory essentially forever.
Whether this had any effect in this study, I don’t know, but it certainly seems relevant that the experience of writing by hand in Japanese is utterly different to any alphabetic script.
[1] Don’t take my word for it, here’s an interesting blog post on the topic: https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2473
Re: Paper vs. devices: Brain activation differences during memory retrieval (2021)
#104NB: this is a Japanese study. The participants wrote their notes in Japanese. If you write on paper, you need to write out each character by hand. In contrast, if you write on a tablet or other device, the input system will sort of "autocomplete" for you. Therefore, more cognitive effort is required to write on paper than on device. It is fairly accepted that greater cognitive effort (either to encode or to retrieve)…
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Re: Paper vs. devices: Brain activation differences during memory retrieval (2021)
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does an iPad with an Apple Pencil compare?
I haven't used the remarkable but I bought a screen protector for my iPad that's intended to yield a paper-like writing and drawing experience when using the Apple pencil. It gets pretty close I think. N.B. if you go this route you'd need to replace the Apple pencil tips a bit more regularly than you otherwise would given the rougher surface you're "writing" on.
Interested in which one you’ve found works best to recreate the paper experience?
Re: Paper vs. devices: Brain activation differences during memory retrieval (2021)
#106One side issue on these studies is there's currently no control group who spent their life solely on electronic devices. Even as tablets are distributed in school from the primary cycle, note taking and exams are all done on paper. This is not a value judgment on wether it's good or bad, just that any further study will be on subjects that spent their formative years writing on paper, they better learn to be good at…
I think “solely on electronic devices” will never happen. But, even ~10 years ago I had friends in college who did all of their note taking on laptops. I sure there are kids who do the same nowadays, right?
I assume 20 years ago "desk work without ever touching paper" would also have fallen into the "will never happen" bucket, but here we are.
Hand writing will always be there somewhere, but paper going away doesn't feel unconceivable to me.
There is a strong counter reaction to tablets ("screens") and it's still costly (looking at the 12"9 ipad...), heavy and and cumbersome, so small kids today who do most of their writing on digital device would be a crazy small minority.
Re: Paper vs. devices: Brain activation differences during memory retrieval (2021)
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you write on paper, you need to write out each character by hand. Exactly like English or French. You also need to remember the correct sequence of letters (see my remark below). > In contrast, if you write on a tablet or other device, the input system will sort of "autocomplete" for you. Exactly like English or French. I didn't write half of the letters used to type this comment. I think you are searching for J…
I've been slowly learning Japanese, mostly with Duolingo, and that's a conclusion I've noted as well. People get hung up on the "complexity" of even hiragana and katakana, complaining about there being two many or those two scripts being duplicates. There are fewer total hiragana and katakana than there are English digrams and trigrams in lower-case and capital letters. (Because Japanese uses fewer overall phonemes..…
Complexity of Hiragana and Katakana is exaggerated by learner. Difficulty of remembering many Kanjis (for write) is real.
Re: Paper vs. devices: Brain activation differences during memory retrieval (2021)
#108One side issue on these studies is there's currently no control group who spent their life solely on electronic devices. Even as tablets are distributed in school from the primary cycle, note taking and exams are all done on paper. This is not a value judgment on wether it's good or bad, just that any further study will be on subjects that spent their formative years writing on paper, they better learn to be good at…
> Even as tablets are distributed in school from the primary cycle, note taking and exams are all done on paper. My kid takes tests on the computer. And when I was in law school almost 20 years ago, students mostly took notes on computers, and tests were computerized as well. I will note that when I was studying for the bar I found it incredibly helpful to re-write my daily lecture notes by hand.
> I will note that when I was studying for the bar I found it incredibly helpful to re-write my daily lecture notes by hand.
I had the same experience while in college, pseudo code, simulating algorithms or rough design schemas were easier done on paper.
Fast forward today, paper brings too much friction in the process, especially as I lost a ton of wtiting dexterity vs computer muscle memory, and figjam or diagram drawing tools work better.
My anecdotal case comes from being bad at paper in the first place, but I wouldn't be surprised to see kids develop in ways that adapt to the primary tools they are given, and be good on digital screens if that's what they need for the rest of their scholar life.
Re: Paper vs. devices: Brain activation differences during memory retrieval (2021)
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only thing I miss is the ability to spread my papers in front of me to think with a global view and mix them and play with them with ease. This is something I never found in any digital product where paper is unbeatable.
This could be achieved with VR although I don’t know of anything product doing this now.
But then you have to wear a VR headset.
Re: Paper vs. devices: Brain activation differences during memory retrieval (2021)
#110One thing I love about my reMarkable tablet is that I get all the benefits of manual handwriting and sketches, enhanced by and combined with digital flexibility (copy/paste, resize, undo/redo, tags/metadata, search, retrieval, PKB integ and interop, etc).
I thought for a long time that I’d like some sort of Epaper tablet. But I eventually gave up on that idea because I realized I like my particular (not even that fancy, just familiar) mechanical pencil that I’ve been using for ages. I wonder if that is a well known or widespread phenomenon. The people who would be most enthusiastic about a particular type of device are the most invested in the previous solution, so re…
I'm 100% in agreement with you.
After decades I finally settled on my preferred mechanical pencil brand. I'm not usually into new technology but these tablets have brought out a sense of excitement I rarely get. After trying them out though it's just not quite there for me. I still prefer my mechanical pencil and sketchbook.
A quality e-ink tablet simultaneously feels so close and so far away.
FWIW the mechanical pencil I've gravitated to is the pentel graphhear series