Why laptops should be banned in law school: Comprehension of material suffers

Whether the laptops are used solely to take notes, or not, laptops are not a great way to aid learning:

The study of undergraduate students compared comprehension for students who took notes on laptops and those who took handwritten notes, according to Suffolk law professor Steven Eisenstat. The students using laptops had no access to the Internet and no other computer distractions, yet their performance on later tests was worse than those who took notes by hand.

Comprehension suffers for the laptop users because they tend to type their professors’ words verbatim, without trying to understand the meaning, Eisenstat says. He makes his case in an article available at SSRN that is set for publication in the University of Detroit Mercy Law Review. TaxProf Blog notes his paper.

Article here.