[npsimons]

> then looking to type (or at the screen)

If someone is looking to type or at the screen, whoever taught them to type failed them. This sounds like the same stupdity of pair programming where "one can type while the other thinks." I'd be curious to see differences in note-taking retention between those who can touch-type and the hunt and peckers.

For me, the benefits of digital are too many: sorting, searching, organizing and of course the backups. I'm also left-handed and do not miss my school days where I would end up with smudges on my hand. I might buy that scrawling something out by hand leads to slightly higher retention rates than touch-typing notes, if only because the ROM is much higher, or it forces you to either go more slowly, allowing more time for reflection (Neal Stephenson wrote the Baroque cycle this way because of this), or have to condense lecture notes more, which would require more active thinking.