Why does not Paperless Office Come?Where is Paper Used in the Future?

Abstract

This paper discusses two questions of why paperless office does not come and where paper is used in the future. The reason for the first question is that most work flows of approvals and applications are still processed with paper and are not digitalized in small companies or organizations. The digitalization of the work flows needs the introduction of companies' backbone system and employee training. Moreover, if organizations cannot manage going paperless well, the productivity of work might be deteriorated against their expectations. Therefore, we expect that the progress of going paperless would be slow in the future. Regarding the second question, strengths of paper is due to easiness to handle of paper and it is supported by the physical affordance of paper. It is difficult for digital media to mimic the physical affordance of paper. Therefore, we expect that paper would be used in scenes where the physical affordance of paper plays an important role to perform tasks.