Lots to think about there.
https://open.substack.com/pub/cardcatalogforlife/p/what-scro...
If it was a physical book there is a good chance I will remember a place for the equation, say about 3/4 of the way through the book, near the top of a left hand page and the right had page had a graph showing solutions of the equation.
I can then quickly riffle through the book to find that spot.
With an ebook I get much less sense of place. If what I read on has consistent paging so I've always seen that equation at the same place on the screen I might remember that but not much more. If the "search" function in the reader software isn't good enough to find the equation and I can't think of enough prose that was around it to find it by searching for that it is going to be harder to find than it is in the physical book.
I think the physical books is activating the same mental facilities that are used to organize memories of a physical journey through a space. An ebook doesn't do that for me.
Any scientific backing that screens are at fault? I don't think so. E-ink tablets do exist. When I'm having children, I'm buying them a remarkable with all the books scanned. Sure, they still need physical sheets of paper and a pen, but they don't have to carry 2-3 kgs of literature.
The major reason against digital literature is that it's free, book authors wouldn't get paid and books wouldn't get sold (Wikipedia / OpenStax / pirated books). Money. It's always been about money.