Remember when I explained why I prefer reading on paper? I often like writing on paper too, although I usually limit that to mapping ideas/concepts (which I sometimes do on a whiteboard of course - involving even more of my body in the cognitive process) and note taking, rather than writing text for a paper, for example. Well, more evidence is coming our way that paper is superior for note taking, encouraging sparser but more thoughtful notes which created deeper understanding both immediatly and a week after, while notetaking on a laptop is more verbose but also more verbatim, a mindless recording of what words were spoken without considering more thoroughly what was said.

Those who took notes in longhand, and were able to study, did significantly better than any of the other students in the experiment -- better even than the fleet typists who had basically transcribed the lectures. That is, they took fewer notes overall with less verbatim recording, but they nevertheless did better on both factual learning and higher-order conceptual learning.