[smeej]

> if you know the best way to retain information, why would you stop using it.

Because I can type something like 10x as fast as I can write by hand (I'm both extremely fast at typing and fairly slow at writing), but the recall benefit is not 10x.

I can recall anything I hear or see well enough that I'm not looking at double-digit multiples of effectiveness for any method over nothing, much less between methods.

The sheer volume of things I can take down typing with 9 fingers on a keyboard vs. writing with one pen outweighs any day-to-day advantage of how much better I would be able to recall the few things I would have the time to write down.