A couple of years ago I had a debate with a colleague at the UN World Summit on the Information Society about the paperless office. I voiced my frustration that despite of the fact that we now do so much online, we still print so much paper. I wondered if the paperless office would remain a dream. My colleague said that people just have to try it seriously but so far they have not. We then talked about how society has to adapt to technological change and how this might take time. That was in 2005.

 

What we did not know then is that since 2001 the paper consumption in the US was according to the Economist declining. While the paperless office is an idea of the 1960s, it has never really caught on – despite of the fact that new technologies like the Internet did not seem to rely on paper. However what happened is that many people printed their emails and treated them just like paper letters which were delivered via email rather than a postal service.

 

People need to adapt to new technologies and need time to change their established behaviours. The decline of paper usage is linked to the rise of a new generation. Generation Y or the millennials grew up with new technologies like the Internet and many of them adopted Web 2.0 applications readily. They do things online. They are not only paying their bills online but also network online. This younger generation is confident in reading on screen and filing documents virtually rather than physically. All is tagged and stored in the virtual cloud.

 

According to the Economist not all paper consumption is declining because people are still keen on printing for the special occasion. Sometimes it seems that good ideas just need time to develop. It needs time until people adapt or rather until the younger generations get rid of many routines and practices that influence how we interact with technology.