False dichotomy. Nice try.

The introduction of the roller ball pen over the traditional quill almost certainly was met with the same "wont somebody think of the children"

* * *

paper, perhaps?

To what end?

In a professional environment, the last time I wrote on paper is when my computer was in for maintenance. That's like having students use hand-slates in the era of paper.

Writing notes by hand has been proven to increase understanding and retention. Unless we’re giving kids OCR tablets, they’re learning less taking notes on a keyboard.

I believe this train of thought jumped to a conclusion not supported by the evidence: does taking notes on computer not increase understanding and retention?

Because anecdotally: I retain more when I take notes on laptop than if I took no notes. I also retain more when I take notes on laptop than if I took notes on paper because my typing speed can keep up with the topic and my writing speed cannot.

To support your claim see Mueller & Oppenheimer's research from 2014. The big issue is that while the laptop lets people capture MORE of the words said, the process of filtering is how the mind consolidates information. Taking notes require you to decide what to leave out and that is what helps you remember.

There are different reason to favour handwriting: 1. Development coordiantion eye-hand; 2. Computers can go to maintenance as you said; 3. Creativity, how many times did you doodle on a white word file? 4. They'll have plenty of times in uni/job to stare blankly at a LCD screen 5. Paper is less tiresome on eyes.

I work as an engineer in an office and use a paper notebook every day. The paper is a great help for thinking out loud and for taking notes.

Reeking purple worksheets fresh off the mimeograph machine, just like God intended. And make the little brats write in cursive.

> teach them where "cut" and "paste" on their parents' computers come from

Apple invented it for iOS 3.0 in 2009.

When I was in high school the district bought 1,000s of PalmPilots and we had to learn Graffiti. :D

(Thankfully it was just a short lived fad and they all gathered dust in storage fairly quickly.)