Neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath said older generations “screwed up” giving students access to so much technology: “I genuinely hope Gen Z quickly figures that out and gets mad.”
Anecdotally I took paper notes all through college because it allowed me to retain knowledge without studying. When I tried with an iPad as a little faux experiment on myself it didn’t have the same effect. I’d argue that this issue however isn’t from the technology itself but rather how easily you can be distracted when using it. Ultimately this is something super under studied imo and something I was interested in for a while. I’d argue however that it would be better to control for mental illness or stress effects. Considering how established social media is for us Gen Z and how damaging it’s been shown for mental health (as at least one example) I’d wonder how this would affect things. After all long term cortisol exposure is bad for memory if I recall correctly. (if anyone wants source I’ll have to go dig up an old paper I wrote).
Edit: Oh also something obvious I don’t know how much it’s been studied is the short form content and attention span effect.
Anecdotally I took paper notes all through college because it allowed me to retain knowledge without studying.
Same, though when I was studying for exams I found typing and retyping my notes to be exceedingly helpful. Not sure if it’s muscle memory or being part of the video game generation, but there’s just something between the hand/brain connection that really helped me out.
Anecdotally I took paper notes all through college because it allowed me to retain knowledge without studying. When I tried with an iPad as a little faux experiment on myself it didn’t have the same effect. I’d argue that this issue however isn’t from the technology itself but rather how easily you can be distracted when using it. Ultimately this is something super under studied imo and something I was interested in for a while. I’d argue however that it would be better to control for mental illness or stress effects. Considering how established social media is for us Gen Z and how damaging it’s been shown for mental health (as at least one example) I’d wonder how this would affect things. After all long term cortisol exposure is bad for memory if I recall correctly. (if anyone wants source I’ll have to go dig up an old paper I wrote).
Edit: Oh also something obvious I don’t know how much it’s been studied is the short form content and attention span effect.
Same, though when I was studying for exams I found typing and retyping my notes to be exceedingly helpful. Not sure if it’s muscle memory or being part of the video game generation, but there’s just something between the hand/brain connection that really helped me out.
I think that repetition in any form is exceedingly helpful. It probably does help to have neuronal wiring already primed for that type of routine.