Alex Iskold writes about the end of paper and I comment
communication March 8th. 2008, 1:02pmI wanted to showcase a Read Write Web article by Alex Iskold about the impending end to the use of paper for information storage (although wrapping paper is unthreatened at present.) Check out the preceeding link to read the article.
Here’s a small excerpt which summarizes the theme of the article:
According to Wikipedia, papermaking was developed in China during the early 2nd century. Since becoming the de facto medium for recording knowledge, paper has evolved to also become the medium of transferring information in the modern world. Now, however, paper is being surrounded by an increasing number of digital rivals. We can debate how long it will be before the next generation of e-book readers kills printed books, but the days of paper as an information storage medium are almost over. In this post we look at the role of paper in our information-rich lives, from books and newspapers, to receipts and office documents.
Paper continues to be a dominant means of communicating to large numbers of people, although Web technology has certainly eaten into paper’s market share.
I commented on the article (well written and interesting, it was) and I decided that I’d share that with you here:
There’s a lot of logic and good ideas in this article. Here are my three problems with the concept of completely eliminating paper:
1. I’m not willing to rely on a tiny screen to do my reading (I don’t use a Blackberry or cellphone text messaging, so I’m just not used to a small screen.)2. Document editing, which many of us do in our jobs, is something I would have to retrain myself to do without using a pen and the ability to, say, put pages 4 and 33 side by side while scanning my content. Could it be done electronically? I’m sure it could, but, quite frankly, I’d never be comfortable with the results unless I could print out the paper and run my pen over it.
Maybe there’s a niche market here: training people how to do online editing and annotation.
3. The other thing that is really needed to eliminate paper is ubiquitous, preferably free wireless Internet coverage or cell phone coverage to ensure access to the Web anywhere, anytime.
If we could get by these three things, paper will probably die.Even though it will ruin comic books forever.
What do you think? Will paper ever cease to be a means to store information?
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March 8th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
I also read Alex’s article. A provocative idea, certainly. But as you said, I can hardly imagine seeing paper replaced by electronics. But hey, just a couple futurama episodes and I can’t exclude the option.
Paper at the moment, is too cheap and too versatile to be replaced. We are far, far away from such a scenario.
March 8th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
@robojiannis - There’s also a big issue of trust that would have to be addressed in order for paper to disappear completely. I can’t imagine the legal (or legislative) system of any country converting to a paperless environment in any hurry.
March 8th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Paper still has one huge advantage over digital media: Most things written on paper are encoded in a well-known, long-used format. Which is to say, most things written on paper are in languages still in common use (and unlikely to go away anytime soon) using glyphs usually in even more widespread use (because multiple languages share alphabets). They’re also on relatively durable media.
Why is this an advantage? Preservation! For example, literate English-language speakers can pick up and read documents from the past 600 (or so) years and still understand them. And older languages can often be deciphered as well. And parchment and paper have proven to be able to last for decades-to-centuries, depending on the care taken.
What about digital media? Digital media are encoded - more literally - in multiple ways: File systems are formatted according to certain conventions. Files are written with certain structures. Text is encoded into a digital format, typically (these days) ASCII. Text is also “marked up” in a variety of ways.
But while many of these formats seem “standard”, the fact is that most of these standards are only a decade or two old - if that. ASCII has been around for my lifespan, but HTML and PDF have been around for a much shorter span. Both Apple and Microsoft have introduced new filesystems since 1990, and that typically means that old filesystems cease to become supported.
Consequently, as old hardware falls into disuse, files in these old formats cease to become readable unless someone makes the effort to transition them to new formats. And that means that documents are lost.
Throw in issues such as physical media decay (digital media tend to decay much faster than paper) and how the DRM question will play out (DRM often prevents people from making copies of items they’ve purchased, which means they can’t transition their files to newer formats to sidestep obsolescence; not to mention that it makes lending a lot more difficult) and I think there are many reasons to see the death of paper as less than imminent.
The kicker is that paper tends to stay preserved simply by putting it somewhere where it won’t decay. Preserving digital data requires ongoing effort.
Most of the content which has aggressively transitioned to digital is timely or transient content: Most people don’t care about preserving news, or blogs, or whatever. (Should they? That’s a good question in and of itself.) They want to get their daily fix, and then they rarely go back to it.
The interesting thing about this point is that it won’t necessarily inhibit the end of paper, but it might lead to a lot of data loss in the next few decades until people perceive the problem (and decide to do something systematic and organized to fix it).
My book collection may take up a lot of space, but I know I’ll be able to enjoy it for the rest of my life, at only the expense of moving it when I move. I can’t honestly say that I know the same thing about digital content.
March 8th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Honestly, I think that you are right about the barriers.
I have a few mobile devices, and I have even seen the Kindle and Sony Reader in action. I still can’t see myself moving my entire library to digital.
Eventually, the use of paper will be greatly reduced, if only to decrease our affect on the environment. However, there will always be a market for physical media like novels.
People are not only more comfortable with it but there is secondary industries (book resale, first editions etc . . .) that could not exist without them.
March 8th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
@Michael - you bring a good insight to this conversation… just imagine if we had been storing important documents in a proprietary or little used format (say Commodore Amiga, the old Apple II or something similar) and someday needed to get them back. In fact, if paper wasn’t succeptible to heat or water damage, plus potential fading over time, it might be much better than we think, although microfilm had a bit of an edge for durability. But that also brings another question: what about saving documents as images or a semi-universal “read” format (e.g. Adobe document format)?
March 8th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
@Steve S - the thing is, I do strongly agree with one of Alex’s main points: receipts should definitely go digital - they are a royal nuisance. Things like pay stubs, too - a number of employers offer on-line versions of these documents and don’t give out paper anymore.
March 8th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
The debate begs one important question first: what is information, and what is not?
March 8th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
@Skellie - Hello! One of my computer science classes from university taught that data was raw facts and knowledge, while information was data given meaning.
Interestingly (and perhaps appropriately), the Wikipedia entry on “information as records” says the following:
As far as Alex’s article, I think that’s the kind of information that’s being discussed.
March 25th, 2008 at 7:08 am
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