[HN Gopher] Paper vs. devices: Brain activation differences duri...
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Paper vs. devices: Brain activation differences during memory
retrieval (2021)
Author : Brajeshwar
Score : 196 points
Date : 2023-12-04 04:04 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.frontiersin.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.frontiersin.org)
| ggm wrote:
| Link is 500
| idonotknowwhy wrote:
| Worked for me just now
| marttt wrote:
| For me, 500 on first try, but worked with refresh.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| Author should have written it down and posted it to all of us.
| ngrilly wrote:
| Anyone here did see an improvement in memory retrieval after
| switching from taking notes by typing on their computer to taking
| notes on something like Remarkable?
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| No, and frankly, the increased search and lookup time when my
| colleagues can simply string grep them on their computers is a
| a handicap.
|
| That said, I have never been able to take notes on a keyboard.
| I also find that physical notebooks not only are in practice
| much easier to search, but I also have the impression that the
| fact all your note pages physically still exist (and not
| "disappear" after you change pages) helps recollection.
| contravariant wrote:
| Wouldn't surprise me if linking the notes to a physical
| location aids memory.
| teamonkey wrote:
| That's the theory behind mind mapping.
|
| As a side note, I feel mind mapping works differently on
| paper than with something like Xmind. Xmind is for
| organising and categorising thoughts by moving them around.
| Paper mind maps are for helping me remember the
| conversation when I wrote them; I can't seem to use
| software for that at all.
| falling_myshkin wrote:
| Me neither. Memory palaces also show that this effect can
| be emulated (not sure if that's the right word) in the
| mind. I wonder if there is a way for computers to encourage
| developing a 'mind map'
| drbaba wrote:
| I used to take some notes on paper (if it needed math and
| diagrams, or for meetings that require eye contact), and some
| notes on a computer (programming or pure text). My iPad
| replaced the paper but not the computer.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| I think the kind of notes you can take with pen and paper beats
| what you can reasonably do with a keyboard. And I think some of
| the diagrams and annotated equations you can easily write on
| paper creates a much better learning experience.
|
| But computer notes are much easier to search. So for things
| like meeting minutes, and daily todos etc, write it in a .txt
| file. But when following along a deep learning course, write
| the equations and diagrams on paper. Later you can write code
| examples in your personal cheat sheet for easy retrieval.
| ngrilly wrote:
| I thought devices like Remarkable were doing automatic OCR to
| enable search across notes?
|
| Assuming search works, then I'd say a big advantage of pen
| and paper is being less constrained in the layout of your
| notes, and for example do diagrams. Big disadvantage is not
| being able to edit, for example restructure your notes by
| moving things around.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| I use OneNote and do some scribbled handwriting and quite a
| lot of typing; mostly 'printed' in text from PDFs. I'm always
| amazed at how it can interpret my handwriting, a lot of
| people struggle with it (including me). It's not perfect, but
| it surprises me sometimes.
| Multicomp wrote:
| The ability to attach multimedia screenshots, videos,
| images, files, digital ink is what elevates OneNote to me
| beyond Joplin, DokuWiki, LogSeq, Obsidian (all tools I've
| tried and can see why they have such appeal) , and other
| markdown++ notetaking applications, at least for my own
| taste and usecases.
|
| OneNote is not only a good notetaking capture tool, it's
| also a great clarifying tool for general reference/project
| support digital filing.
|
| Whether the digital artifacts are text, handwritten
| doodles, embedded files like multimedia or WIP digital
| artifacts, screenshots of binary file hexdumps, the works
| can all be stored together with relevant context, all
| labelled and fitting into a 3-ring-binder skeuomorphism I'm
| used to from organizing projects back in school in the
| olden days.
|
| Not the tool for everyone (especially those want to go
| fully Linux Desktop) but its very close to having something
| for everyone. Just gotta be able to do mobile and linux
| with local notebooks.
| grvdrm wrote:
| Funny - hadn't thought of it this way accidentally used the
| same approach for an actuarial task.
|
| I was updating an insurance pricing application that had all
| sorts of formulas for capital requirements, profit load,
| minimum premium, etc. The formulas were often laid out in SQL
| but I ultimately wrote them step-by-step on paper to make
| sure I was truly following the logic (and order of ops).
| Worked well!
| pringk02 wrote:
| Anecdata, but I've never been able to switch to using a
| computer for note taking because I just get no long-term memory
| retrieval. Typing notes seem to be like never having learnt the
| thing. The search doesn't help because I don't even recall what
| I do or don't have to search through. When I take physical
| notes, I don't seem to need to look at them again, because I
| will recall what was written well enough that their purpose
| isn't as an archive, its for helping me retain something in my
| actual brain.
|
| Another anecdata point, I have ADHD. It affects memory in all
| sorts of known and measured ways. I generally find if I can get
| something into long-term memory then I'm set. Working memory is
| terrible. Physically writing while working serves as a crutch
| there too.
| dboreham wrote:
| I'm not sure about memory, but I've found that thinking through
| problems is easier using a pen tablet. I use a Surface Pro X
| mostly, but sometimes my Samsung Fold phone if that's all I
| have with me. If I use paper, I lose the paper.
| 6stringmerc wrote:
| The amount of mental investment to write by hand versus type is
| significant.
|
| Technology assists are still rather primitive for English (you
| can't argue with me on this it's the hardest language due to
| amalgamations) but lazy gonna lazy.
|
| My thesis paper on file from 20 years ago already set forth a
| curriculum to address literary learning deficiency. Oh well.
| Point being is I've practiced the hard way and if you only know
| assisted methods I will eviscerate you. In fiction, I will always
| be better than you.
|
| Hey Alexa, how do I spell schadenfreude?
|
| Note: I have 100,000 hours in literary pursuits ranging from
| reading to writing to critique. Often mocked for my English
| degree. The truth is English is a wonderful weapon far beyond the
| grasp of the commoner and I will use it.
| wesleychen wrote:
| Except in this study they were comparing writing on a paper to
| writing on a tablet so it seems that somehow the fact that the
| writing happened to a piece of paper makes our memory better
| and its not just the act of writing itself.
| amelius wrote:
| Maybe because mistakes are less expensive on a tablet.
| tgv wrote:
| That's testable, but if it turns out to have a benefit,
| you'll have to implement that effect on all tablets and
| phones, and make corrections more difficult (???).
|
| However, I don't think it has a benefit: people don't
| correct themselves on tablet/phone, so I think the cost of
| a mistake is the same as on paper, namely 0, unless people
| are really more careful when writing.
| vasco wrote:
| Right now you're using it to get downvoted on a random website
| comment section so perhaps take yourself a bit less seriously!
| dmvdoug wrote:
| You will eviscerate me?! I need my viscera, good English major,
| please spare me.
| keiferski wrote:
| 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 beat the human (tablet),
| but a human with a bicycle (SRS system) outcompetes both.
| ezequiel-garzon wrote:
| What's an SRS system?
| suriyaG wrote:
| I think it is Space Repetition Software/System
| fermiNitambh wrote:
| Spaced Repetition Software.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Software that prompts you with information on some time
| interval that allows for embedding it deeper in your memory.
| I think the key was it would prompt you with the information,
| just as your short term memory would be about to forget it,
| and thus re-inforce it.
|
| 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.
| falling_myshkin wrote:
| I don't understand your simile. The limitations of a bicycle
| are infrastructure: bicycles can go a lot of places very
| efficiently, but rugged mountain terrain without trails
| (precisely the place condors thrive) would be difficult to
| traverse. (this is totally off topic but now i am curious about
| the energy efficiency of condor flight vs bicycle travel in
| ideal conditions)
|
| i find SRS very useful. but i personally think it is not well
| suited to reference information. i'm skeptical of putting all
| my appointments in SRS for example (maybe birthdays would be
| worth it). or say I had collected a bunch of papers related to
| a topic I was very interested in. I don't necessarily think I'd
| want to memorize the list of them via SRS, but having the
| titles written somewhere for reference would be great. I think
| the point of this paper is that if that 'somewhere' is an SRS
| card, it is almost completely devoid of context (other than
| 'studying flashcards on computer' context), but if that
| somewhere is a notebook that contains lists of papers related
| to all the topics i'm interested in, it's much easier to find.
| (though computers are good at searching fast)
| keiferski wrote:
| It was just an example used by Steve Jobs to show how
| computers could enhance human capabilities.
|
| Also, using a SRS in conjunction with a memory palace can
| solve a lot of the reference issues you're describing.
| falling_myshkin wrote:
| this combo technique sounds useful, is it something like
| reviewing memory palaces with spaced repetition, instead of
| reviewing standalone information?
| keiferski wrote:
| Something like that, yeah. The idea being that you create
| a memory palace or physical space, and then memorize a
| map or route through it via spaced repetition.
|
| Memory palaces are often recommended for reference-type
| information, so I think this would work well. There are a
| number of discussions on Art of Memory talking about
| this:
|
| https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/mind-mapping-memory-
| techniqu...
|
| https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/anki-to-load-up-a-memory-
| pal...
| tgv wrote:
| One hour isn't really short-term memory, at least not in the
| usual sense, and short-term memory is definitely needed to form
| long-term memories.
|
| Spaced repetition is an entirely different dimension. It
| doesn't fit between the three mentioned modes. You don't get
| spaced repetition when e.g. attending class or reading a
| chapter. Instead, you make notes. That's what this study is
| for, and anything else is a distraction.
| keiferski wrote:
| My point was more that if you're trying to decide which
| method is better for remembering something (handwriting vs.
| digital), the introduction of a spaced repetition system
| (either software like Anki or a Leitner box for handwritten
| notes) will outcompete either one that is used alone.
|
| In other words, if your goal is to go fast: a bicycle will
| outcompete a tricycle. But adding a motor to either will be
| an order of magnitude better. At least that's what I think;
| and so I wish the study had included this.
| Probiotic6081 wrote:
| > My point was more that if you're trying to decide which
| method is better for remembering something (handwriting vs.
| digital), the introduction of a spaced repetition system
| (either software like Anki or a Leitner box for handwritten
| notes) will outcompete either one that is used alone.
|
| The study in question compared three groups (pen & paper
| note taking, smartphone and tablet) on information
| retrieval and note taking duration after reading a
| dialogue.
|
| Maybe I'm misunderstanding your point, but that systematic
| spaced repetition will lead to better information retrieval
| is kind of obvious and has a lot of literature to support
| it, but how is it relevant to this study?
| keiferski wrote:
| Because the original link submission title was more about
| memory and writing vs. typing. And so I was commenting on
| the topic of memory as a whole.
|
| Judging by the other comments, most people had the same
| interpretation.
| Probiotic6081 wrote:
| > I was commenting on the topic of memory as a whole
|
| You specifically said that the study was lacking a fourth
| group (spaced repetition software.)
| keiferski wrote:
| You I seem to be posting hostile, unhelpful takes all
| over this thread, so I think I'll end the conversation
| here.
| tgv wrote:
| Studying isn't note-taking. It doesn't make sense for this
| study to include it. It's a different modality, a different
| task. If the study had included this, it would have been
| tossed aside in peer-review. You can't compare across
| widely differing conditions. An fMRI study also isn't the
| appropriate way to compare conditions in very long term
| recollection tasks, and get the result you seem to want to
| get out of it: the proper way to do it is scoring the test
| result.
|
| The implicitions of this study are limited, as usual.
| jyunwai wrote:
| I agree with your thoughts on digital notes providing an
| advantage with making flashcards, as they match with my
| personal experience with learning new subjects.
|
| I used to learn with handwriting more than digital note-
| taking in the past, but I found it hard to convert the
| handwritten notes into a flashcard format (the best I could
| do was retype, or write the notes in a question-answer
| format, scan them, and use the screenshots as flashcards).
|
| By starting with digital notes, however, the process became
| simpler for making flashcards for a spaced repetition
| system--it became much easier to reformat the text for
| digital flashcards. I then found it much easier to review
| my notes in the future in a way that actively tested me,
| versus passively re-reading my handwritten notes.
| AngaraliTurk wrote:
| Just a very small nitpick, but "system" is redundant when you
| say SRS, as it would be like saying Spaced Repetition System
| system.
| keiferski wrote:
| SRS = spaced repetition software.
| AngaraliTurk wrote:
| Spaced repetition software system? That's not the usual
| meaning of SRS, but good to know some people use it like
| that.
| kolinko wrote:
| A shoutout to SuperMemo here - one of the oldest SRS out
| there. Their first version was on Amiga, if I remember
| correctly, and the newest ones support iOS, use LLMs and
| all the other tech :)
| keiferski wrote:
| I've never used Supermemo (still windows-only I think)
| but the data on their blog is really awesome. The founder
| basically pioneered the idea of SRS.
| Tomte wrote:
| iOS? No, certainly not. The recently released version
| just did the jump from Internet Explorer to Edge support.
|
| You probably mean the confusingly identically named
| SuperMemo on supermemo.com (not .guru), that is indeed a
| spaced-repetition software, but is not the venerable and
| famous real SuperMemo with a gazillion of features and
| research behind it. Just a simplistic knockoff. Strangely
| by the same author.
| Probiotic6081 wrote:
| >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
|
| Then you should go tell the journal editors that this study is
| incomplete and didn't cover the type of memory you consider
| more significant, hopefully they will retract the paper
| BaculumMeumEst wrote:
| I think it would be interesting to see a study on memory
| retrieval for completing software projects with a dumb text
| editor with nothing enabled, an IDE, and an IDE with copilot
| enabled.
| shinycode wrote:
| I might also depends for how long the developer has been using
| the tool. At university we first learned to program with pen
| and paper to develop memory and thinking habits before doing
| everything by hand with only vim and after that using and IDE
| after +6 months to let the habits develop. Maybe if a
| developper starts learning straight with copilot, some habits
| will never form and things will never go into long term memory
| ?
| Buttons840 wrote:
| I learned to program using Python with Geany, no autocomplete,
| every single letter typed by my fingers; no auto-format either.
| I was doing some consulting (I got a cheap consulting gig as my
| first job) and wrote a daemon in Python, which ran for about a
| year, then hit an edge case where I had misspelled a variable.
| -_- After that it ran for several years, 24/7, no problem.
|
| Now to my point: I learned Python far better than any other
| language I've ever used, I think because it was the first
| language I used seriously, but maybe it was because I never
| used auto-complete in those early days?
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Or maybe because it is Python. I find Python to be a beginner
| friendly, easy to learn language that steers you in the
| "right" direction. I think it is the biggest factor that
| explains its popularity. It is not a perfect language, in
| fact, I don't like it that much, but you have to give credit
| when credit is due.
|
| With C++, you can have decades of experience and be
| considered an expert, and yet, feel like a noob (my case).
| Perl, a language that shares many similarities with Python is
| also much harder to learn well. The "there is more than one
| way to do it" philosophy has value, but not for learning.
| falling_myshkin wrote:
| i don't like _auto_complete, i find that the nondeterminstic
| text changes on the screen are pretty distracting. however, I
| do really like quick lookup of relevant names at my own will
| from the editor. this is possible with even e.g. ed and ctags.
|
| i'd wager nearly every development environment is integrated to
| some extent, piping output in the unix shell is integrating.
| apienx wrote:
| 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).
| criddell wrote:
| What personal knowledge management software do you use?
|
| I've never noticed memory differences based on how I made a
| note. I have, however, noticed that the act of making notes
| helps me understand something (which isn't necessarily the same
| as recall) and writing on paper works best for me.
| maksimur wrote:
| 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.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Think that is the key/point. Once you get frustrated at the
| re-writing, waste of paper. That in-itself will start to
| train you to think through your thoughts before writing them
| down. It will help slow your brain down and conceptualize
| things more fully first.
| maksimur wrote:
| I've been frustrated at it since I was a kid, but no
| intervention seems to have had an effect on reducing the
| waste. If I went through with thinking through my thoughts
| before writing them I'd be stuck for a very long time
| (potentially days) at best, else I'm back to square one.
| halayli wrote:
| I am not sure I agree with their participants sampling approach.
| Memory and particularly short term memory is highly impacted with
| people that have adhd/depression/bipolar. I am surprised they
| went with random participants without assessing their mental
| states and taking that into consideration.
| HSO wrote:
| 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) is associated with greater recall.
|
| So I would doubt the transferability of this result to western
| context.
| geniium wrote:
| Very interesting difference. Thanks for pointing it out
| makeitdouble wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > 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.
| gwervc wrote:
| > 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 Japanese exceptionalism where it
| probably doesn't apply. Remembering the correct kanji, and
| graphy of said kanji is pretty much the same as remembering the
| (wild) orthography of French or English words. I'm searching
| quite often if a letter is a 'a' or 'e' (doesn't help that
| cognates between French and English often swap those), the
| conjugation of a verb or if a letter is doubled or not (again
| often not the same for related words, for example _ennemi_ vs
| enemy).
|
| Your perception of the difficulty in-between writing systems is
| twisted by the decades of education you got in the said system
| vs the few years of learning another system with a second
| language. When I see some soup of letters in Japan, it's clear
| that the question is not just about one system being more
| simple than the other.
| redwall_hp wrote:
| 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...and
| the characters are consistent in terms of pronunciation,
| unlike English.)
|
| I'm not very far into kanji (just some basic ones like Shui
| or Ren that stick) but the principles are solid: they have
| shared stroke components (radicals) that related kanji share,
| much like similar collections of letters, and studying them
| as you study vocabulary isn't really any different than
| knowing what an English word looks like on sight, without
| "sounding it out."
| getoj wrote:
| 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
| chrisweekly wrote:
| 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).
| geniium wrote:
| 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.
| intrepidlemon wrote:
| This could be achieved with VR although I don't know of
| anything product doing this now.
| Manouchehri wrote:
| VR resolution is far too poor at the moment in my opinion.
|
| At the office, I use 7200x2560 @ 144Hz (5x 27" vertical).
| It'll be a few years before we see VR as a competitive
| alternative.
| ska wrote:
| > I don't know of anything product doing this now.
|
| I suspect there is no technology really capable of doing
| this well yet, let alone product.
| goda90 wrote:
| I've seen so many sci-fi concepts of smart ink on paper.
| Something you can leaf through like a book, but the ink can
| be changed electronically. I wonder if we'll ever get that.
| matly wrote:
| Interesting. How is the integration of the reMarkable into
| other ecosystems? Can notes be converted to text and used
| elsewhere easily? (e.g. Nextcloud or Markdown docs)?
| dartos wrote:
| They have their own cloud service, but the remarkable runs
| some kind of *nix. You can ssh to it over usb-c. They even
| give you the root password.
|
| Check out awesome-remarkable. I'm sure there's a way to get
| next cloud syncing working
| loughnane wrote:
| I self-host rmfakecloud. Let's me back it up and not share
| the data. Lots you can do with it from there, though I mainly
| do it for privacy.
|
| https://github.com/ddvk/rmfakecloud
| funksta wrote:
| As a big reMarkable fan, my first thought was how much the
| results would apply to "digital paper". I can't think of any
| reason why writing on its paper-like surface wouldn't confer
| the same benefits.
|
| Would love to hear how your PKB integration works!
| bee_rider wrote:
| 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
| replacing it for the seemingly "best" customers is a
| surprisingly high bar.
| dash2 wrote:
| I love my eink tablet, and it's definitely better and more
| comfortable than my laptop screen or phone. But for some
| reason, actual paper still seems even better. I'm an academic:
| if I really want to study a difficult paper hard, I print it
| out.
| nomel wrote:
| How does an iPad with an Apple Pencil compare?
| ragle wrote:
| 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.
| parkersweb wrote:
| Interested in which one you've found works best to recreate
| the paper experience?
| criddell wrote:
| They both have pretty good palm rejection and stylus pressure
| sensitivity.
|
| For writing feel, the iPad gives you a lot of options from
| slick glass (the default) to many different screen protectors
| with different trade offs for writing friction, glare, and
| screen clarity. The Remarkable screen doesn't have as many
| options, but you might not miss them. The screen is very nice
| to write on.
|
| For functionality, the iPad is much more advanced. It's
| faster (less pen latency), has fantastic text recognition,
| built in camera (which is great for capturing whiteboards),
| color, slightly higher resolution, etc... You also have more
| options for note taking apps. I personally use GoodNotes and
| Procreate for almost everything.
|
| The biggest drawback for me with the Remarkable is the small
| screen. The big iPad has a screen close to A4 size which is
| fantastic for reading and marking up documents. The smaller
| Remarkable screen forces you to either shrink the document or
| do a lot of panning. There are 13" eink screens (like the
| Quaderno) and I hope the next generation of Remarkable
| devices offer it as an option.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| 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 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.
| bayindirh wrote:
| > One side issue on these studies is there's currently no
| control group who spent their life solely on electronic
| devices.
|
| 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.
| bee_rider wrote:
| 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?
| makeitdouble wrote:
| 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.
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _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.
| erikerikson wrote:
| The general hypothesis is that increases in the count of
| modalities used and intensity of use within each modality for
| a task is, by definition, an increased engagement, more
| completely triggering the adaptive mechanisms such as memory
| and providing a more pervasive context into which the
| learning can be woven.
| ajhurliman wrote:
| 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".
| zone411 wrote:
| Interesting result, but I wish they hadn't used scheduled
| appointments as the content of the note. I don't write down
| scheduled appointments because I want to have them stored in my
| mind, quite the opposite. It would be much more interesting if
| they used something you want to learn and memorize. I expect the
| result to hold, but still.
| deafpolygon wrote:
| I would imagine that in about 20 years, this will show a
| different result. I feel it has strong bias due to how many of us
| are raised during our formative years. When tech becomes more and
| more common at a younger age, our brain will be different.
| awinter-py wrote:
| not obvious what app they're using to input appointments (from
| skimming + ctrl-F-ing for 'app', 'software'). did I miss
| something?
|
| not sure why you'd blanket compare 'all digital input' to all
| paper. surely the UX matters.
|
| like is this some cursed psych study calendar app that integrates
| with electrodes
| aeschenbach wrote:
| "Every time you write it down, you make another copy in your
| head."
| willsmith72 wrote:
| i love studies like this, i've always found this to be
| intuitively true, so my confirmation bias is like "YES", but i
| hope there's more and more research into this.
|
| smartphones are such a new technology
| xivzgrev wrote:
| I once wrote out a job hunting goal on a sheet of paper and read
| it 3x per day for a few months, with "crazy" salary and
| everything. And then, I got it.
|
| I did similar thing later with multiple goals in Google docs.
| Found that I'm not as consistent with it and haven't achieved
| those same goals.
|
| Could be consistency, more goals vs fewer, or the paper vs
| digital
|
| There's something about paper that feels more real. It also
| forces some focus as you only have so much room on paper
| digging wrote:
| I find that any goals the exist inside my computer get
| downgraded subconsciously because, physically, it's like
| sliding them into a folder with everything else I do all day
| every day. I can open that folder and pull out my critical life
| goals or the doodles I did during a meeting or that cool
| article I want to learn something from, etc.
|
| However, prioritizing physical space for a goal affects your
| real life. Maybe this doesn't apply if your written goal was
| just in a notebook that is also used for other things, but if
| it's on your desk, (and your desk isn't cluttered,) its
| physical important also signals the brain.
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| I'm sorry, are you saying putting "get a great job" on paper
| and reading it repeatedly does anything at all to actually
| getting the job?
|
| Could it be that such a huge goal as "be successful in my
| career" is just more important than the ones you put in Google
| docs?
| hn8305823 wrote:
| This correlates with my personal experience.
|
| If I take paper notes, I rarely have to go back and look at them.
| Even then it's usually just to confirm my memory. If I take notes
| on an electronic device, I'm far more likely to have to go back
| and look at the device.
| Shermanium wrote:
| I recently bought an inexpensive fountain pen and have been
| enjoying my list and note taking more.
| anthk wrote:
| Now do paper vs an environment like Emacs and not a passive
| device.
| joveian wrote:
| Personally, I'm not convinced it is a good idea to make any
| conclusions about reality from any fMRI study (I'm not convinced
| what is being measured is all that important plus even
| intrepreting what is being measured relies on complex
| statistics). Also, for this kind of thing the outliers are very
| important in tring to figure out what is going on. They show
| individual data points and eyeballing them I don't really see a
| lot of difference in the accuracy, with the tablet in particular
| being slightly worse than nearly identical phone or notes (but
| they had to pop out "easy questions" to make that difference look
| interesting). Saying there is a difference between device and
| paper just because the tablet condition did worse is misleading.
|
| https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/634158/fnbeh-15-6...
|
| They mention the difference in terms of location cues in the
| conclusion section. I would guess UI choices affect the ability
| to use location sense to recall information and I could easily
| imagine the small menus of phones enhancing this effect (and/or
| larger screens in general reducing the physical location effect
| of the device itself). Taking a quick look on Google Scholar
| there is some research on this kind of thing but I'm not seeing
| any thing that pops out as a particularly interesting
| presentation. Any UI designers out there who intentionally try to
| trigger location sense in their design?
| westurner wrote:
| Algorithmically and physically-biologically, Spreading activation
| has a (constant?) decay term:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spreading_activation
| daveguy wrote:
| Nitpick: Figure 4f is an obviously incorrect regression line.
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