Paperless and Full of Paper’s Society???

A school where I attended recently gave us the option to save papers by choosing to receive an email copy of its newsletter instead of a mailed paper copy. My friends wanted the email version but I did not. They liked the convenience of only seeing the pages with the class schedules. I liked the convenience of hard copy so that we did not have to go online every time we had schedule questions. So we compromised instead of receiving two mailed copies, we had one emailed and one snail mailed. It is another small victory for the paperless society. However, in my opinion there are still advantages of using manual way of doing work that is using papers. Therefore, this essay is going to compare and contrast between the paperless society and full of papers’ society.

Paper is an important raw material for garbage men and recyclers. It supplies more landfill tonnage than any other materials, and it also is our most easily and commonly recycled material. A paperless society has major implication for both sides of the solid waste equation. People used papers since they were studying in primary school. The paper industry does not think so. Paper production remains healthy for most products. Of course, some are not as strong as they used to be. And newspapers are becoming slimmer as a television and other media siphon off advertising dollars.

Will we have paperless society? I doubt it, but a less-paper society is inevitable. Scientists are hard at work inventing substitutes for most paper products, including “pages” for books and newspapers that do not remotely resemble the paper we know so well. Expert declares that the new office computers made paper irrelevant. Today, most of us laugh when we remember those predictions. But I wonder, were the experts wrong, or just too early? Those first computers did not have the memory to replace paper, making the first attempt to create paperless offices doomed. But has the rise of the internet changes the rule of game? Is a paperless society only a generation away?

The paper industry does not think so. Paper companies will use more paper to make smaller boxes of shipping products sold on the Web than for shipping cases of the same product to a brick and mortar store. Tissues and towels cannot be replaced by Bytes, although the Japanese have invented a paperless toilet. Right now, we are not using less paper as much as we are shifting who pays for it. Besides, I can read the paper more quickly and efficiently on the web than with the paper version. But I still can print out articles that I need to save and think about. This indicates that we are using papers in our daily life.

Undoubtedly, my generation will have trouble using less paper. We are used to reading books, magazines and newspapers on sheets of paper and not on a computer screen. Our generations however, are more adaptable. My friends used to reading mails, newspapers articles online, and they use the Web to research assignment projects. Does anyone even buy paper encyclopedias anymore? I do not think so, as people always seek for convenience in their life.

As conclusion, paperless society and full of papers’ society give us understanding of what kind of society there are. Some think that paperless society are unintelligent as they are depending on what they found in Web or internet but for me, as long as the society knows how to use the knowledge, they will be at the same level with full of papers’ society.

NOOR FARHANI AHMAD ISKANDAR

NOOR FILZATI ZULKEPLI