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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just a very small nitpick, but "system" is redundant when you say SRS, as it would be like saying Spaced Repetition System system.
SRS = spaced repetition software.
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) is associated with greater recall.
So I would doubt the transferability of this result to western context.
This study appears to focus on short term memory, but for my money, long-term memory is much more significant. As such, it would have been useful to add a third option: using a SRS system like Anki. I imagine it would significantly outcompete both hand-written notes and digital tablet notes. A bit like the famous Steve Jobs example comparing a human, a condor, and a human with a bicycle. The condor (hand-writing) may…
What's an SRS system?
So some information X you want to remember.
It would prompt you with it at 5 minutes, then 20, then an hour, then 5 hours.
I forget the durations, but it was based in some studies on time before short term memory fades.
I tend to write with more intent when using paper because I know that editing is not really possible. Accessibility is also much more limited on paper. However, I think of my devices and PKM software as a second brain where I just offload information knowing it can be accessed anywhere and anytime. P.S. From TokyoU’s Department of Basic Science (in an allegedly predatory journal).
I wish it was like that for me too. I waste a lot of paper because I have to strike or rewrite my notes over and over for mistakes and changes of mind, even though I do my best not to make them. I still didn't find a way to fix that, but maybe it's just how my brain works.
One 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).
This is something I never found in any digital product where paper is unbeatable.
NB: 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)…
NB: 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)…
> Participants in the Tablet group used a stylus pen, thereby controlling for the effects of longhand writing with a pen in the Note group.
In this specific study this is not a notable effect between the Note and Tablet groups. For the phone group you're right that it's a completely different input, while also being much more painful all around due to the sheer device size.
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 it and would fail their entry into society if they couldn't do so.
Any conclusion that paper works better than electronic methods comes with that asterisk to it.
One 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’m a statistic of one, but I started my digital mobile life on PalmOS/Handspring devices. I still prefer pen and paper for deep-thinking and future planning, despite having them reflected in a digital medium later.
Tactility of paper, plus not being subject to a glowing screen apparently changes something deep in my mind. No, e-paper and stylus is not the same for me, either.
I finish two notebooks per year.