PLN 13: Get. Off. Paper.

In the article “Get. Off. Paper.” By Will Richardson, what matters is advancing the economy so much in technology that we no longer need a pencil or paper, but instead we would do everything via computers, whether in Microsoft, or blogs online. The article talks about different conferences and presentation where 50 some people came and took notes with pen and paper, rather than using a laptop. He questions where those multiple pages of notes are now, and how they are used.
Many young people would agree that it is time to move on from paper, and to use computers for everything, including school and work. They agree that the advance in technology would be great for our economy, and would be a convenience to people everywhere. In some ways, they are correct. By using more and more technology, we would be saving rain forests and other trees by not needing so much paper. We could “go green” and help with the environment by not using things that cause pollution because we would have all our information on the computer.
The other side of that is that it’s not time to make such a drastic change as to skip from lots of paper to virtually no paper at all. There are elderly people living in our nation who grew up with pen and paper, who haven’t the slightest idea on how to work a computer. I am not saying that the article said to completely get rid of paper, but it suggested that its use become more minimal, quickly. There are people who wouldn’t know how to do anything with technology, because all of their lives have been without it.
I think that the best solution to this is to simply wait. Our generation has grown up with things such as iPod’s, computers, DVDs and other things. We should wait until technology becomes a part of more people’s lives, before we try to make it run the world. If we wait until more people become familiar with it, and know how to use it, it will be easier to convert over to using mainly computers.
The advance in technology has affected many things in our everyday lives. How long will it take to be an even greater part in which we hardly use paper? How long will it be until the people of the future think that we should move onto something greater, beyond the computer? Is the technology going to help us or hurt us in the end? Something to think about.