Is the use of paper used within our homes on the decline? Today's New York Times article Pushing Paper Out the Door provides a some clues to the diminishing use of paper in the home:
Going paperless was a conscious decision by the Uhliks. But many families may be closer to entering a paperless world than they realize. Paper-reducing technologies have crept into homes and offices, perhaps more for efficiency than for environmentalism; few people will dispute the convenience of online bill-paying and airline e-tickets.
Some homes may no longer have phone books, but many have scanners — and, increasingly, more than one. Flatbed scanners, which most people use for photographs, offer high resolution but are cumbersome for scanning large volumes of paper. New, cheap document-feed scanners that can digitize a stack of papers, receipts or business cards in seconds are becoming popular. Add multiple computers, digital cameras and maybe an electronic book reader, and suddenly paper seems to be on the endangered-species list.
The article also touches on the fallacy of the paperless office, which was dreamed up after word processing technology was introduced by IBM, Xerox, and others in the mid-70s. This article from BusinessWeek in 1975 is regarded for its prediction of the paperless office.
As the NYT article points out, the paperless office has yet to really materialized, as employees typically have unrestricted access to printers and copies which can lead to reckless use. This is typically not the case at home, where hitting the print button can have detrimental impact on the pocket book.
I was just at the local computer store last week looking at scanners, and multi-functions devices so I could reach my goal to digitize all incoming documents. I typically consider myself on the fringe when it comes to adoption of digital technology, but I'm glad to see that I'm among a growing number of people that are turning to digitization to improve organization and collaboration in the home.
And if this trend is true, I see a market for personal digital asset management systems to help the home user store digitized content in fashion that provide quick and convenient access.
Discussion
By Dr Joe on Feb 13, 2008
Savings from being paperless are essentially a fallacy. There was a study a couple of years ago that I cited in my column about e-paper in newspapers, which estimated the total cost of production of a paper-based newspaper vs. an electronic one, and the paper-based used less energy in its entire lifecycle. Among the biggest problems is that people have not connected their home energy consumption with their use of electronics. Keeping data active, for Internet access, for example, requires that servers always be on. In the U.S., most electrical consumption is from coal-based generation, which despite its great strides in cleanliness, is still electrical generation consumed just in case someone decides to access a file. Printed materials once printed do not require continuous power to keep them available. Keep the paper; use less. It's easier to recycle paper than computer parts and batteries.
By Eric on Feb 13, 2008
"Printed materials once printed do not require continuous power to keep them available." Yeah, but can you imagine the overhead in housing costs alone trying to print and file Google? ...I'm still a bit far off. My wife won't let me toss the phonebooks even though I haven't used one in like 3 years!
Discussion
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