[Daub]

The article does not explain what the value of pen and paper has over a digital note pad. It just declares it has one. However, I can sympathize. I teach drawing and design. Of course, most of my students were raised on digital media. For some, their first experience drawing was digital! I have a lot of trouble explaining to them the value of pencil and paper.

In “Personal Dynamic Media.” (1977) Kay, Alan and Goldberg described a computer as a meta medium: a medium that can 'fake' other media (my synopsis). I think we are always aware of this when working digitally. There is something in us that is aware of the essentially ethereal nature of the digital. I'm not sure that is the right word though.

[mdparker89]

One benefit of the ethereal nature of digital is that editing is really easy which is part of what makes digital so appealing. The downside is that it makes it hard to silence your inner editor. Often the editor takes over before you even get to create.

[sethetter]

Well said!

[app4soft]

> I teach drawing and design. Of course, most of my students were raised on digital media. For some, their first experience drawing was digital! I have a lot of trouble explaining to them the value of pencil and paper.

As I'm involved in tech drawing creation & teaching, I already switched from using pencil'n'paper to FLOSS 2D CAD QCAD Community Edition.[0,1]

But, for curious reasons, I really like to draw some technical drawing oldschool-way too.

[0] https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1323562201794437120

[1] https://github.com/qcad/qcad

[bonoboTP]

> The article does not explain what the value of pen and paper has over a digital note pad. It just declares it has one.

Would some handwavy explanation be better? Sometimes all we have is an observation and it can be valuable to share and discuss it without immediately making up some explanation.

Yes, perhaps it has to do with tactile feedback, immediacy, not having to brace for annoying notifications and nagging of digital devices (new message, new update available, extra information filling up the screen, having to "buffer" what's behind windows in a "mental stack").

But who knows, this is speculation, we don't understand the brain well enough to say why precisely this is how it is.

[bachmeier]

> The article does not explain what the value of pen and paper has over a digital note pad. It just declares it has one.

From the article, at the very beginning: "Nothing will provide focus like pen and paper."

[Daub]

Yes, but why? I am not being a pedant. My task is to convince students to use pencil and paper from having been raised on a lifetime of digital. They require more than a simple (and true) observation. What is it about pen and paper that provides more focus? What is the mechanism at play?

[sethetter]

> The article does not explain what the value of pen and paper has over a digital note pad. It just declares it has one.

The advantage is being clear from potential distractions. A lack of "features" providing a direct line of focus on what you're writing.

Apologies if that wasn't clear from the article!

[Daub]

Nice article. Thanks. It is certainly something that a lot of us here are naturally interested in. But With respect, I don't think that your observations constitute a mechanism. Digital Apps that are deliberately feature-restricted do not hold the same attraction. I believe that there must be some further mechanism at play.

Perhaps as animals were are primed for the tactile, and everything else feels ghostly. I don't know. All I know is that no expand I can come to will convince my young students of the value of analogue.

[rikroots]

My preferred answer would be: no batteries required.

[chriszhang]

> Free from distractions

I agree. Digital device with connectivity to the Internet is full of distractions. If you mean a digital notepad with no Internet access, then yes, that can be a solution too.

[bayindirh]

> If you mean a digital notepad with no Internet access, then yes, that can be a solution too.

Nothing beats the feeling of a real pen and paper for me. The texture of the paper and the feedback of the pen changes the experience a lot for me. Even if I've grown with computers and wanted my profession since forever, nothing beats paper (incl. e-paper/e-ink) when it comes to writing.

Working with an analog medium completely changes the mode my brain works too. I can concentrate much deeper and can think much more broadly. I love reading from e-readers but, for writing there's no substitute.

[M4v3R]

Did you look into Remarkable e-paper tablet? [0] Many people swear by it because it supposedly has the feeling of paper when writing (the screen has a matte/rough texture). I've ordered one myself, haven't received yet so I can't vouch for whether those opinions are true or not, though.

[0] http://remarkable.com

[bayindirh]

Yep. I know the device. While it's promising, e-ink has some inherent problems. Namely, color and speed.

I always design my software on paper first and, color is needed for diagrams. I also read academic papers a lot and use color-coded highlighters (remember / further research / etc.). Remarkable doesn't support these workflows.

e-ink is not a fast medium. I have an eBook reader (Kobo Glo HD / 300dpi) and I love it for reading but, highlighting process is slow and ugly (lower color depth -> overdrive for fast response -> repaint with correct gray levels -> done). Writing will be similar, with some lag and that's flow breaking and unacceptable for me.

At the end of the day, it's a good skeumorphic device which mimics paper albeit a rigid and slower one. On the other hand, paper's tactile response is unmatchable, especially when combined with fountain pens (which I use a lot).

Also, there are some ritualistic stuff with pen and paper. Every project has its own notebook, which triggers context response in my brain. When I get the notebook, I reload the stuff at the background. Every other task is automatically pushed back by the subconscious. It's a kind of leveraging the "library" system of the brain.

iPad pro has a faster screen and color but, backlit screens kill my eyes after a certain time period (All my panels are either OLED or high quality IPS with reduced blue light). I don't want to lose my eyesight for that.

I want to add that paper is hard to digitize, takes a lot of physical space and has maintenance but, these downsides are balanced out by the advantages it brings, at least for me.

I love working with digital systems. I use Pagico & Trello extensively. A digital diagram a lot. Keep structured knowledge bases in Evernote and Zim but, when it comes to thinking and documenting the thinking process, I always return to the pen & paper and, get that 10x boost instantly. I just can't replace it and I don't want to replace it anymore.

Trivia: Words like "On the other hand", "in that case", etc. comes from early memorization techniques where you imagine that you're actually putting that subject/idea in to your hand or a physical case which helps with structuring big subjects a lot. Using paper, different notebooks, etc. triggers the same circuitry to improve focus, retention and efficiency.

[bee_rider]

Haven't tried Remarkable. Did get the SO a wacom tablet last holiday season, seems to like it, I couldn't stand the thing. It feels kinda like using a pencil -- an unpleasantly thick one. I wonder if there could be an issue whereby the sort of folks who are OK with something feeling vaguely like writing on paper are already well served, but the really picky/peculiar people (I tend to stick to a particular brand of pencil and .3mm soft lead) are just living in this fat tail where the digital replacement will never be quite right.

I'd rather just write on the paper. I wish there was an easy way to digitize it, though.

[White_Wolf]

I personally prefer pen and paper when I need to summarize projects to main steps/ideas. Nothing like the fixed/finite space that you need to work with to make you more efficient.

I have a digital notepad from work. I don't see it the same. I can write novels on the damn thing and would still have room to spare.

Maybe it's just personal preference or just being weird but I'd rather have half of A4 to work with just to organize my thoughts properly.

[sethetter]

I'm with you here -- constraints like that can definitely be useful! The constraint of slowing down to write by hand is also useful for me in this context.

[MR4D]

Because you can’t surf HN on a piece of paper.