Paper & Culture in the Digital Age
Paper is deeply rooted in human cultures. Paper outlasts any current digital storage medium. Here's why paper is going to be around a while yet.
There are books and documents that are many hundreds of years old that will still be around long after the hard drive on your phone or computer have gone to digital dust in the aether. As a medium, paper remains a key aspect of cultures around the world.
As PCs came to consumer markets at scale in the 1980’s and then flourished in the business world, there was much discussion that the end of paper was upon us. Everything would be digital, even books would soon disappear. Then along came personal printers for homes and networked printers in the office. Paper was back with a vengeance.
Paper production in fact, has increased with China being the largest producer in the world today, followed by the United States. It is estimated today that we create about 400 million metric tons a year. Paper was invented in China somewhere around 25–220 AD, while the printing press that enabled mass production of books, brochures and such was invented in Germany by Gutenberg in the 15th century.
Paper it would seem, remains as important to culture in the digital age as it did thousands of years ago. Why? And why might paper remain culturally important and relevant?
The Cultural Value of Paper
The first mechanically printed book was, as many know, the Gutenberg bible. Given that the most non-mechanically produced book was also the bible and the role of religion in society at the time in Europe, this is of little surprise.
For the Chinese, when they invented paper, it was largely used for literature, art and philosophical writings. And bureaucracy, a use that Western European societies would also quickly put it to use for.
Bureaucracies have long thrived on keeping records. Some of the first uses of writing when we chiselled stuff onto stones and then papyrus was keeping inventories and track of money owed. In Andean cultures, they had the quipo, a very elaborate recording system using fibre string and knots. Kind of a precursor to blockchain today.
Paper played a vital role in cultural transmission, especially when the printing press came along. Academics in universities finally had a way to share ideas and concepts and then debate them by printing all kinds of books. The early concept of arguing on social media?
Paper lasted longer, could be produced at scale and be used in many ways. From artistic endeavours like Japanese origami to books and artworks. Cultures around the world have long held deeply held values around paper. Values that still remain today.
Which also shows us that as much as we think change is incredibly fast, when it comes to deeply rooted cultural values of technologies, change can be much slower than we tend to think.
The Role of Paper in the Digital Age
Humans tend to value that which we can see, tough and engage with than that which we cannot. We may generate images and videos and massive texts through Generative AI like ChatGPT or Claude but we intrinsically value them less than we do books and papers.
There’s a very good chance that those of you reading this article have folders of downloaded PDF’s and other documents labelled as “read later” or “research” and that you’ve dumped a lot of things in those folders and rarely gone back to actually read them. Or you’ve printed out all kinds of documents that languish somewhere at home or the office.
We still celebrate authors who write and publish print books. They are highly vaunted individuals. Their books may be available for eReaders, yet we still hold a deeper value for the printed book.
Printed books are seen in various ways by different cultures. Some will pass down books through the generations. Some prize a printed book they can touch to be of more value than anything digitally produced. For most cultures around the world, teaching children to read through printed books is a deeply held social norm and tradition.
We know too that our brains, as science has shown, learn better when we use printed books versus digital books or texts. That having books at home on shelves influences children to be better in academics.
There’s BookTok, a Tiktok network where people talk about and celebrate printed books. All across social media channels, printed books are talked about. There are hundreds of thousands of memes that celebrate the different ways we read books, from comfy little nooks to public spaces.
Today we can sign legal documents digitally and these are considered legally bindings. But buy a house, make a major purchase or legal agreement and nearly 100% of the time you’ll be signing printed documents and lots of copies will go around.
The Future of Paper
Just like those books and documents that are many hundreds of years old that will outlive today’s digital storage technologies, paper is likely to be around a very long time yet. Why?
We increasingly live a portion of our lives in a digital world. We communicate through social media, messaging apps, online forums and video calls. But we still demand paper in courts and official documents. If it isn’t printed, we don’t consider it truly real.
Paper isn’t just part of our norms and traditions, it is also used in our rituals, not just religious rituals, but those of our daily lives. Like making time and space for reading books and magazines. Newspapers are unlikely to return like they did and who how rituals can change. But materials that play a role in rituals tend to stick around a lot longer than those that don’t.
While we may conduct a portion of our lives digitally, ultimately, it is what we can see and touch that we feel is real. Printed matter, physical mediums are ultimately more representative and culturally valued than anything digital.
Perhaps some day, we will live in a paperless world. That could take a few hundred more or even a thousand or thousands of years, however. Much will depend on how digital technologies evolve and how cultures respond to these technologies.
It may well be that with Generative AI like Large Language Models (LLMs) creating vast amounts of digital content, some useful, but a whole lot not, we may end up further distrusting that which is digital. A book publisher is unlikely to invest in AI generated gibberish and will increase their efforts to validate what is being produced in print form.
We tend to think that technological changes happen overnight. Like one day it dawned on humanity around the world that life was better if we all started farming. In reality, it took about 4,000 years for humanity to transition to agriculture at scale.
Paper too, is here to stay for a while. How we use it, the roles it plays, like culture, are likely to change. But for now, paper is here to stay, so deeply rooted a technology is it in cultures around the world.
If you want to see the real indicators of changes in our relationship with paper, watch bureaucracies. Both in governments and corporations. They do love their physical records of everything after all.
Oh, and if you like this article, you can always print it!