But is there any evidence on how what OP is doing compares?
This is obviously different from "typing things out on a computer".
This is obviously different from "typing things out on a computer".
People tend to get wrapped up in the idea that writing stuff down is better than typing stuff out in terms of memory retention. But this is not the full story.
The reason that studies repeatedly conclude that writing notes is more effective than typing notes is that writing is a conscious effort. You are usually falling behind when writing compared to what is being spoken and therefore as a subconscious product, your mind is actually summarizing and filtering information from the speaker as they speak. You can't write every word they say, so you have to actually listen to the speaker and determine what is worth writing. Then as you write, it takes a conscious stream of effort to write out the words and it is a slower process, which allows your brain to focus on and digest the information another handful of seconds before moving on. The feedback loop that writing naturally requires is what makes it more applicable to memory retention, not the physical act of writing itself.
By comparison, most people can type around the speed of a speaker talking at a moderate cadence. This allows you to often type exactly what a speaker is saying, essentially as a stream of words coming in the ears and transferring directly into your motor control that allows for typing. This skips a processing stage (or introduces a very vague one) and so typed notes often become just streams of data collection as opposed to writing which tends to require elaborate data processing. It is the data processing that makes memory retention effective, not the writing of letters itself.
What OP is doing is creating the same feedback loop, potentially to an even stronger degree than writing allows for, because you have to consume the information, figure out how to translate that to LaTeX and determine a method for displaying that information. LaTeX often requires an understanding of the full function when creating it. This requires more processing, and then a secondary process of consideration in developing a written or image function into a LaTeX format.
Therefore, you get the same effect that writing provides, which is the data processing and translation components. This is what makes writing effective, not the movement of pen on paper. I would argue that what OP does is at least as effective as writing (maybe more, but that is conjecture).
That may depend on whether they can touch type. I don't know what percentage of HN audience can touch type, but the prevalence is pretty low among general population. The generation senior to me has more touch typists due to their training on typewriters. But I'm the only touch typist in my circle among the current and the next generation.
The reason why touch typing is important is that non-touch typing is very distracting and takes more cognitive effort - diverting some of your attention away from what you're supposed to be doing. I know the difference because I learned touch typing recently. In fact, I think that cognitive effort in non-touch typing is one of the reasons why it's not easy to remember things you type, compared to writing.
It's great to put your notes in latex. But that's just final polishing. It's just a medium.
I am not a genius, in fact I am pretty dumb, but I studied with geniuses. The more geniuses they where, the less things they wrote in class.
One of them, the extreme case, completed the 5 years Math and Physics combined undergrad IN ONLY 3 YEARS.
He just wrote 4 or 6 sentences in a white sheet for class, except when doing calculations, but he didn't do that much in class. Some sentences were facts others were questions. He seemed uninterested but I think he was doing heavy lifting in his head relating what he saw with what he knew. When you asked something to him he used to say "Yes this is not new, it's just a variation, combination or example of this".
If I were to do college again I would spend a lot of time reading the texts (more than one for comparing important topics), then go to class to listen and solve doubts and spend time solving problems (interleaving topics) and making active recall with spaced repetition.
Only after the exam I will put effort to try to sum up what I learned In a well rounded Latex small book. For sharing and for revising it later on, in case of need.
Maybe that’s fine if OP really likes to study, and high quality notes make that better. I always had pretty poor study habits, and needed to lock away as much info as I could during class.
Why is it 'obviously different'?
The OP's title is How I'm able to take notes in mathematics lectures using [a computer]
What OP has described is clearly a different behavior than either handwriting or typing.
That's one hypothesis. Another would be the device [or lack of] is indeed the meaningful difference:
"Handwriting likely facilitates learning and memorization because of the numerous one-of-a-kind physical cues it provides: the shapes of your letters, the tactile feel of the paper and pen, the location of your words on the page, and details like folded corners, ink color, and other marks on the page. Your brain absorbs all of these pieces of information, which can later serve as triggers so that you more precisely pull the information from your memory.
By comparison, when you enter information into a phone or tablet, your words have no fixed position and then disappear when you close the app, leaving substantially less tactile and spatial information for your mind to absorb."[0]
[0] https://www.fastcompany.com/90618464/ditch-the-digital-notes...
...just as we should not assume the OP's note-taking methodology using a device to be equivalent to that of taking notes using pen and paper, because the interaction is substantially different