> Why note-taking apps don’t make us smarter
Because... they're not supposed to?
To me, this sounds like "Why pen doesn't make us smarter" or "Why lamp doesn't make us smarter". Why was the author expecting it to make us smarter anyway? Where did they get that expectation?
In my experience, thinking more is the only thing that will reliably make you think better. And to think more, you need space and time, not a breathtaking density of inputs and outputs surrounding your thoughts, which seems to be the note-taking industry's solution.
ie.: a simple walk in a park or a calm and silent place
Wanna get fit: watch what you eat, burn more calories than you intake, exercise, probably minimize alcohol intake.
Wanna learn stuff: intake new information from a reliable source, write it down (in anything), reprocess the information in your own words, and review often enough for you to pick it up.
Anything I'm missing?
> burn more calories than you intake
That's harder than it sounds. Most people incorrectly measure how many calories they intake and incorrectly measure how many calories they burn.
Even for folks who correctly calculate both, they then have to change behaviors -- usually behaviors that have been developed over decades. Again, harder than it sounds.
This is why so many people keep seeking out weight-loss solutions: because the best way isn't easy.
While most folks today can pick any note software (or notebook) off the shelf and happily jot things down, a relative few folks are trying to do a _lot_ more with their notes and are going to be frustrated with the generic tools that most people use. For those few folks, the easy way isn't the best way.
And this isn't new: depending how we categorize it (har), folks have been trying to refine their "note-taking" for hundreds or thousands of years. I don't think they were looking for a panacea; they were heavy thinkers who wanted to improve their process.
This is such a strange comment.
"They’re designed for storage, not sparking insights. Can AI change that?"
That's the sub-header. The followup. The next line.
> Because... they're not supposed to?
Tell that to the note-taking apps that are adding AI to their apps in order to "make us smarter" as some would say. To improve our knowledge, to think bigger, to brainstorm for us.
> Why was the author expecting it to make us smarter anyway?
The headline doesn't say that at all. In fact, the article starts off by making it very very very clear that they aren't doing this.
> Where did they get that expectation?
They didn't. That's your conclusion.
> To me, this sounds like "Why pen doesn't make us smarter" or "Why lamp doesn't make us smarter".
They sound nothing alike. The sounds are completely different. You should get your hearing checked. =)