I agree that taking notes by hand allows me to focus better on the lecture, improves recall, and is generally more engaging. Yet I still choose to take notes on

I agree that taking notes by hand allows me to focus better on the lecture, improves recall, and is generally more engaging. Yet I still choose to take notes on my laptop. Why? I first note that there are, in my opinion, two major types of lectures: there are those in which I only need to note down major ideas and in which it is more important to listen to the lecture, and those which move more quickly, making it necessary to note down everything, as a single omitted detail can cause hours of confusion later on. It is clear that for the first type of class, handwritten notes are just as good as those taken on a computer. There is little difference between the two, practically. For the second type of class, however, it is clearly easier to type notes. Most people type faster than they handwrite, and with reasonable proficiency in LaTeX, anyone is able to more or less type up an entire lecture of notes quite easily. But my reason for typing notes goes beyond that: the major issue I have with handwriting my notes is the inevitable accumulation of loose-leaf paper, and the ensuing confusion. I have only rarely actually managed to keep together an entire set of handwritten notes on a class. More rare is the case in which I actually manage to decipher my own handwriting later on, and rarest of all for me is actually going over handwritten notes. For some reason, I (virtually) never bother revisiting my handwritten notes. Organizationally, handwriting my notes is an enormous hassle that I cannot deal with. It just never works out. Electronic notes --- I keep a single .tex/.pdf for each class --- are much easier to maintain, organize, and browse later on. I can continue making revisions, add hyperlinks to relevant web resources, etc. Moreover, as they are (when you are sufficiently quick) easier to take than handwritten notes, it's also easier to thus create a complete set of notes that cover everything. I recognize that by transcribing all my lectures in real-time, I am probably missing out on some of the experience I would have if I were more immersed in my professors' lectures, although I feel that I should point out that despite taking notes electronically, I am quite immersed. After some time of practice, I'm able to listen and pay reasonably close attention to the lecture while I'm just typing as the professor speaks. I would probably be more immersed if I were not taking notes at all, or very few, on a piece of paper, but as it is, having a complete set of typeset notes is just far more valuable to me (not to mention the value to the other students, and occasionally even to the professor --- I often distribute my notes to others).