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My set of anecdotes too. I'm from the dark ages when notes were by hand and computers used punch cards (of course, there were magnetic tapes too!). So when I was in college it was all handwriting and typewriters. I still have and use my portable mechanical Olympia.
After graduating with a BS and doing some Masters Degree work, I stayed out of school for about 9 years and then went back to law school in the late 80s. I had a dual floppy laptop which I loved, but I never used it in class because the key clacking was too distracting. One other guy brought his to class, but after a few days, the professor banned it because of the noise. BTW, this was before wireless internet so you couldn't be distracted by the web.
So another 15 years went by and I'm back in law school for an advanced degree. Everyone has computers, half the students are surfing the web during class, and the class discussion is noticably less deep. I'm convinced that it is because people are spending their time trying to get things down into their notes that they are listening as stenographers rather than participants. The difference is striking.
On the plus side, your computerized notes are searchable and easy to index. On the minus side, taking those notes involves more of your resources than the habit of jotting down important points during the class. It is hard to both be a stenographer and a participant.
The old manual note taking took more time because for them to be meaningful you had to go back and edit/synthesize them. But that helped learning.
On balance, I'd be in favor of no computers, but I fear that students these days would feel naked and anxious without them.
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