The Beauty of Paper in a Paperless World
We spend our days in thrall of digital communication. Perhaps that is why paper is having a renaissance?
By Xische Editorial, November 22, 2019
Source: Smallsketch/Shutterstock
As communications increasingly go paperless, email is one of the most important written vehicles of our time. We can’t avoid it and can barely imagine life without it. It’s simply a part of us for better and worse. As a result, email is one of the best barometers for our overall relationship to technology and the growing anxieties many of us are developing. The ubiquitous smartphone is often the first thing we reach for in the morning and the last thing we put down in the evening. If the smartphone were a car, email would be the petrol. It’s one reason why newsletters (not unlike our weekly newsletter, Backstory) have become so vital for organisations and media outlets. Access to a personal inbox is one of the most intimate and influential spaces on the web.
Given our overreliance on email, there is a whole new set of anxieties that come with opening one’s inbox. Have you noticed a love/hate relationship with your inbox? Does the ping of a new message make your blood pressure perk up ever so slightly. For millions around the world, the answer is yes and the trendlines are only getting worse. Changing office culture standards mean that more of us are expected (if not required) to be on email at all hours of the day. France has even taken measures to limit the use of work email after business hours but that is just one drop in the bucket. The smartphone means we are always connected and that means that most of us will end up checking work emails outside of the office.
There is something else taking place when it comes to email oversaturation. Have you noticed your business quietly going paperless in recent years? From emails to Slack messages and spreadsheets, digital has replaced paper as the go-to medium for workplace communication. Imagine the offices that our children will be working in. Do you see stacks of paper? The paperless revolution has even reached some forward-thinking governments.
The Dubai Government aims to be fully paperless by 2021, and all transactions will be moved to a blockchain. We can’t stop the march away from paper – and it’s certainly a positive move for the natural environment – but we can consider how using paper in our personal lives might improve our relationship with the written word.
The wrinkle in this story is the growth of paper. That’s right, good old-fashioned slices of trees are making a comeback. From books to handwritten letters, many of us are finding refuge in paper products. According to Quartz, the personal stationery industry is booming, with sales expected to surpass $128bn by 2025. E-commerce startups such as Sugar Paper, Minted, and Maurèle are growing the market with direct-to-consumer products that go far beyond simple cards and wedding invitations. Maurele sells personal stationery inspired by the letterheads of figures like Albert Einstein, Salvador Dali, and Frank Lloyd Wright. After a long day staring at screens big and small, who wouldn't love receiving a letter on such beautiful stationery?
The beauty of paper in the digital age is the extra time that it demands of us. The digital world is all about speed and efficiency. Every year our phones get faster and pretty soon 5G technology is going to usher in a new era of speed. That speed is critical when it comes to business and the work of the government but there is a time and a place for slow thinking as well. Paper is the opposite of speed. Reading a physical artifact invites us to get lost in the written word. Writing a note by hand forces us to think through our thoughts. We can’t be lazy when there isn’t any spell checker. Using paper products to unwind can help reclaim the lost art of time. Ironically, paper is the portal to a more balanced and healthy digital life.
Anyone can push out an email from a smartphone but taking the time to sit and consider one’s thoughts into a handwritten note is something of a different order. That’s why there’s a time and place for paper in our paperless world. As businesses take advantage of the speed and efficiency of paperless communications, the luxury of paper can be reserved for downtime (physical books still outsell e-books). It’s the perfect antidote to email anxiety and its utility will only become clearer the more time we spend on our smartphones.
