The Myth of the Paperless Office
0 The concept of a paperless office grew with the advance of technology. It was
00 widely been claimed that as email became commonplace, people would stop
34 writing memos, keeping bulky files and bringing piles of paper to the meetings.
35 But the reality has in fact been quite the reverse, and paper, having already
36 survived five thousand years of technological change,and has proved remarkably
37 resilient. Worldwide, the amount of paper used for each year continues to
38 rise up, although statistics now show a slight reduction in the amount
39 it consumed in the UK. So, has technology failed in its aim to end the use of
40 paper? Max Bray, a business lecturer, thinks office workers still distrust computers.
41 ‘Technology is unreliable in mostofpeoples eyes,’ he says. If you are sent an
42 important email, you are likely to print it, because there is always the
43 fear that it mighthaveget deleted.’ In contrast, Paul Blunt, a marketing
44 manager for desktop products,whosays there has been significant progress in
45 automating a wide range of tasks, even though the transitionbetweenhas been more of an evolution than a revolution.