Despite the advent of the digital age, paper still plays an important role in our daily lives. Some of the reasons why paper is here to stay include its historical first-mover advantage, the convenience of writing and recording, the sensory experience, and its legal reliability. Whether paper can ever be completely replaced is still uncertain.
In 1945, V. Bush, writing in The Atlantic Monthly, first prophesied that paper would disappear in the future. This has since been repeated by many experts, most notably Bill Gates, who in 1999 predicted the end of paper in his book The Speed of Thought, saying that “the paperless office will be born”. This prophecy shocked and intrigued many people at the time, and has become one of the most iconic predictions of the digital age. At the time, many people believed that this prediction would soon become a reality, and were convinced that the role of paper would be replaced by digital devices.
However, since Bill Gates made that prediction, the demand for paper has actually increased steadily. The demand for e-books has also skyrocketed, and while the consumption of digital content has increased noticeably, we still see more paper books around us. In fact, many book-loving readers still enjoy the texture of paper and its distinctive smell, valuing the sensory experience that digital devices simply can’t provide. Given this reality, it’s probably too early to talk about the end of paper, and with the recent rise of POP and calligraphy (the art of creating aesthetically pleasing writing with fountain pens, brushes, etc.
So why is paper in such high demand? There are a number of reasons. Maybe it’s because writing on paper and reading a book on paper is more comfortable than taking notes on a computer and reading an e-book, or maybe it’s because we like the sound of a pencil on paper. Psychologically, studies have shown that the act of writing on paper strengthens memory and stimulates creativity. Plus, paper is reliable in that it doesn’t require a power source and doesn’t break down, even if it is heavier and less portable than digital devices. However, I’d like to trace this back to the first-mover advantage.
Preemption means to take something before others do. Therefore, the preemption effect is the effect, benefit, etc. of having something before others. The preemption effect can be applied to many situations, especially in the IT industry. An example of this is South Korea’s KakaoTalk, which was launched in March 2010 and has since spawned many other mobile messenger clones, including Naver’s Line, but in 2015, KakaoTalk had a 97% share of the South Korean mobile messenger market and over 37 million users.
Another example is the keyboard layout. There are two main types of keyboard layouts for typing Hangul: two-bul and three-bul. The two-bul system combines consonants and vowels when typing Hangul, while the three-bul system combines initial, middle, and final sounds. Although it is generally believed that the three-column system is more efficient than the two-column system, the two-column system is the one we use today. This is because the two-column system was widely used first.
The use of paper can also be analyzed from this perspective. Ancient Egypt used a paper called “papyrus”, and in the East, Chai Lun of the Later Han Dynasty invented paper around 105 AD. Paper has been a part of our lives for nearly 2,000 years, and has been in the market for more than 1800 years before computers, which are less than 100 years old, so it’s no wonder that we feel more comfortable and familiar with writing directly on paper with a pencil or ballpoint pen.
To overcome this first-mover effect, you need to enter the market with something that is much more convenient and efficient than what was already there. Especially in the software industry, it’s hard to break into the market with just any innovation. This is because people are already familiar with the existing products and have formed networks based on the existing products. You also need to keep up with the changing times. An example of overcoming the first-mover effect is the digital camera. With a traditional “film camera,” you had to go through a rather specialized process of developing the film and printing the pictures to get the pictures you took, but with a digital camera, you can just transfer the picture files stored in the storage to your computer and print them. In addition to this convenience, the increasing demand for PCs and the Internet also helped digital cameras enter the market.
We often see students taking notes on their computers during lectures. This is much more convenient in terms of taking notes, as typing speed is usually faster than writing speed. However, when we take notes, sometimes we write directly, other times we diagram something to make it easier to understand at a glance. Unless you’re using a tablet, it’s nearly impossible to diagram something on a computer faster than pencil and paper.
We live in the IT age. Computers are all around us in the form of PCs or smartphones, including desktops and laptops, and we can access the internet at any time to get the information we want and stay in touch with friends and family far away using messengers. Computers also provide us with the convenience of writing documents with programs such as Hangul and Computer or MS Word. However, they have not yet surpassed the advantages of paper in terms of getting information and taking notes. If it becomes possible to diagram information on a computer much faster and more conveniently than on paper, the days of pencil and paper will come to an end.
In the meantime, the reasons why writing and recording on paper is still important in our daily lives go beyond mere habit. Paper also plays an important role as a legally binding medium of record in certain situations. For example, contracts and signed documents are still written and stored on paper, something that digital signatures have yet to fully replace legally. In addition, paper books can be read without electricity and can be preserved for decades, even centuries, as long as certain storage conditions are maintained. In these ways, paper still has its own unique advantages, and there are many practical limitations to talking about a paperless world.
In some ways, the fact that we still write on paper may be a challenge that we need to solve in order to move towards a fully digital age, but in another way, it may be a non-digital element that we have unknowingly left behind. The digital age is great. But I still can’t imagine a world without paper, and even if this idea gets in the way of making the world more convenient, I’d still like to see paper enjoy a bit more of a first-mover advantage over computers.
