While your argument makes sense, I just want to point out that laptops for maths, engineering and science are not useless if you type sufficiently fast [1] and

While your argument makes sense, I just want to point out that laptops for maths, engineering and science are not useless if you type sufficiently fast [1] and "master" [2] LaTeX. And I know of one person who actually does it in chemistry, his notes are stunning and complete (which makes him love to look at them and improve them). As for myself, I use pandoc (Markdown + LaTeX + a long set of custom commands accumulated during lectures) to take notes of mathematics (and it can get ugly sometimes with matrices, which require me to resort to SAGE generating the good LaTeX instead of me.) And, the advantage? I can actively listen and participate to proofs while taking complete notes quickly. As for the spatial problem, I agree that for certain topics, it makes sense, but the cost / quality provided by a laptop was a lot higher, though I take the time to do some sketch on paper and work my drafts on paper because it's a lot faster than on a computer. Second point regarding spatial organisation: You can use mental maps to build spatial representations, along the way, there should be some tool to build any kind of spatial representation. tl;dr: It is actually possible to take notes on laptop for subjects like maths, engineering and science thanks to tools like Pandoc and LaTeX, though it's still preferable to use paper for drafts and problem solving or to organise spatially your knowledge. [1]: depends on your lecturer's speed, in fact. [2]: mastered for the stuff you have to type (e.g. diagrams, advanced maths, etc…).