Why writing everything down feels productive

Typing what a lecturer says is easy, continuous, and produces a satisfying quantity of text. It also requires almost no understanding, which is precisely the problem: you can transcribe an hour of material you did not follow at all, and the notes will look identical to notes you understood completely.

The evidence here is unusually consistent. People who write less remember more, because writing less forces you to decide what matters while the material is still in front of you. The deciding is the learning. The typing is only typing.