Will Paper Become Obsolete?

I got the idea for this thread from an episode of The Office. Funny, huh?

More and more things are being done on computers. Businesses used to have literal books with info about sales and whatnot; now, they have files on computers. It is easier, after all. Takes up less space, easier to search for things, and costs less than buying paper. People communicate through cell phones, text messages, and email. Nobody sends letters anymore. Again, it's easier to use a computer, because you don't have to pay for stamps or wait for your letter to reach the other person and their letter to reach you. You can get magazines and coupons through the internet, and you can even pay your bills without touching a single piece of paper. This begs the question - as computers become more commonplace and technology becomes more adept, will we stop using paper entirely?

It won't happen next year, but what about ten years from now? In twenty years, will paper be worthless? If so, would that be a bad thing? Would that be a good thing?

As Michael Scott once said, real business is done on paper.

I dont think it'll be gone anytime soon. But there has been some serious paper reduction programs coming out here and there... paper costs money, so does ink and toner and they aint cheap.

The only thing that I cant seem to convert into digital format are documents that require signatures from out clients, and we need the originals too. So legal documents will stay in paper I guess for a long time.

Well said.

I highly doubt paper will EVER become obsolete.
Machines can fail, and paper is ALWAYS a back-up.

As the people above said. It wont happen anytime soon.
And besides,even if paper became obsolete in the richer countries, poorer ones will still use paper...

It wont. Paper is more portable, more private, and relatively uncopyable. Thats why paper wont ever really become "obsolete." It may end up being used very little, but it will always be here.

No, no matter how rich or poor, bright or dim, handy or fickle we all need some thing to wipe our arses with in the end.

Agreed.


Computers can fail/crash. They can be hacked into and information stolen. Said person can be safe in his own home.

Paper can burn/rip/get soggy. It's a lot safer than computers though. To steal important information on paper is a lot harder. The person would have to go in and physically take it. Which is a lot riskier.

I still use hand written letters and cards. I hardly text or email someone.

It is very easy do actually. In Denmark all citizens can order a "digital signatur" which is just a private/public encrypted key-pair. This signature can be used as a legally binding signature on many public digital services, and more are added all the time. So regarding this, paper can easily be replaced.

Replacing paper all together is an entirely different matter, and I do not believe paper can ever be obsolete, it will always be useful in some way for some purposes.

Never,unless we experience a shortage of trees.

Jen, well in our case I have actually found a way to allow people to sign our forms online but it seems we are actually required to have the paper version, so the idea got dumped, and we cant argue with what our client demands at the moment so... argh. I wanted to try it but I dont want to pay for it myself just to see at the moment so...

Actually stealing digital information is a lot harder if you take *any* precautions against it. The reason why it seems easier is the nature of digital data in the first place - it was *meant* to be easy to copy and distribute.

lol besides wiping our asses w/ a computer is hard & painful

I doubt paper will ever disappear, it is the basis of most media. Also, it is the most basic of all forms of filing.

lol, well besides for this purpose I think it's very possible. I wouldn't imagine it happening in less than 20 years though. I'd miss having a real book in my hand but not so much I'd actually want trees to die just so I could be holding a book as opposed to some device with an e-book.

Paper will always exist as, if nothing else, a back-up. Something 'accidentally' happens that involves the corruption of sensitive files, and that 'accident' happens on multiple terminals, and you'll still have the original hard copy.

Given that optical media today has a life expectancy of 5 to 10 years before degradation (and magnetic media is worse), paper will still be in use for a long time. Also, given the rate of technology, most media today will be largely unreadable half a century later. For example, who still has a vinyl or 8 track player?

Heck, there are scrolls still legible after a few thousand years. Hard copy is hard.

I don't believe it will become obsolete, on the sole basis that it's more convenient than a computer. You can bring a peice of paper in your pocket, but not a computer. Need to write something down? Take out the paper, get a pen, and write it. You can do that with a blackberry too, but what if the battery died? Then you're stuck, and if it's something important, you may want to write it down now instead of trying to remember it later.

Good answers, everyone, but let me change this a bit:

Will paper ever become obsolete to the average person?

As I've already said, very few people send real letters anymore. It's all email and texts. With entertainment, downloading is huge right now, and I imagine it'll only get more popular. Comics don't have to be bought and read in your hands - they can be downloaded and read with more ease. Same with books; there are devices made specifically to read digital books. And a lot of people don't seem to miss the feel of a real book in their hands. For notes, there are the palm pilots and everything; it's not hard at all to jot a note down in one of those. And while the technology could fail, batteries could die, people don't seem to mind too much. I'm about the only person I know that actually uses a watch. Everyone else uses their cell phones. (A little off-topic, but the point is, people blindly trust that their things will always work.)

Even when it comes to taking notes in a classroom (or meeting, I suppose), people can use laptops. In the not-too-far-off future, it may be that every person in a class will have a laptop in front of them instead of a pencil and paper. Would we let that happen? Or would that be natural progression?

....average.....person......
(dictionary)
.....
............
.................
.....maybe?

For art, legal purposes, and nostalgia, paper will never die.

On a personal level, I use paper for everything. A keyboard is impersonal, touchscreens don't cause enough friction, and my handwriting is bad enough to make it auto-encoded.
You can't coffee stain a .odt file, manuscripts are just superior.
(Though, I'm one of those Vinyl>MP3 wierdos)