It's a new semester, which means it's time to shill for the handwriting industrial complex.
In study after study, students who set aside devices learn better. The evidence has mounted even further since @dynarski's 2017 article
@natematias @dynarski The obvious problem is the continued use of large lecture hall formats for education. I think that we should refer this analysis back to the times of Socrates, who recognized that the act of writing things down interfered with face to face communication and the development of memory. We, of course, highly value great print libraries of accumulated knowledge. We now have more immediate access to even vaster online resources. These resources allow us to utilize way more accumulated knowledge than we retain in our memories at one time. Certainly students can use an in person expert guide, (the professor) and not simply be given access to the appropriate book, research documents or websites. Do laptops make for for more diversion than doodling on paper while supposedly taking notes? Maybe so, but I think that ought to be actually irrelevant. Large scale lecture halls were actually never the right answer.
@natematias I agree that lack of needed financing for education is a huge impediment.