![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
It's interesting to me that I'm finding more and more people realizing that as creatures meant to live and interact with an analog world, there are real benefits to keeping certain things in that analog world.
Memory and retention for example are for the most part better when we write things down than when we type them into a computer. Most of us can type significantly faster than we write, and that's actually part of the problem. We type things in so fast that our brains don't have time to absorb them. When we write by hand we make a physical connection between the notes, our eyes and our brain that takes a little longer to do and as such burns in a bit more deeply.
This makes me wonder how it's going to go for all the kids growing up taking notes on laptops instead of notebooks.
I think if the future is digital, we'll end up somewhere between where we are today and where we came from. Things like the reMarkable will end up being how we use digital tech in the future. Digital convenience, but with an analog interface that works better with our analog-centric brains.
I know for myself, switching back with some things to actual paper notes has helped me be a lot less scatterbrained. I still use digital tools, they're just the second layer of things I do now. I need to get that first, important burn in from writing things down by hand.
This also makes me more resilient when I'm not directly in front of a computer. I always have a little notebook and a pen with me, that live in my pocket. When I think of something and want to write it down, I don't grab my smartphone, I grab that notebook. And I look at it often.
There's an added bonus to physicality. Having something to hold in your hands, to read and react to in physical space is another one of those things that make our brains light up more.
I can't help but wonder, if part of the problem we have today with all the craziness that's going on is because we've largely left that physical, analog world. and now live in a totally digital one. We don't make those deep connections or drive those neural pathways home like we used to. And that's maybe made us more susceptible to all the misinformation, lies, "AI" slop, and other things that dominate society today.
