Why Paper Is Eternal - Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press ...

or shoulder them, triumphantly barge them open or defiantly prop them
shut. 30
For several decades now, paper has been viewed much like the hinged
door, as “a symbol of old-fashioned practices and old-fashioned technology.” 31
In June of 1975, Business Week published a cover story called “The Office of the
Future,” which various experts predicted would be paperless. 32 Fast forward to
the early 1990s, when digital messianism was running so high, it became
incorrect in some circles to communicate on paper at all. In the introduction to
one of the most talked about books of that moment, Nicholas Negroponte’s
Being Digital, the author offered a three-point explanation-cum-apologia for why
he was delivering his techno-visionary message in such a quaint medium, “an
old-fashioned book” made of “atoms instead of bits.” 33
Some foes of paper have attempted to eliminate the medium by fiat. In
1993, the cutting-edge advertising agency Chiat/Day announced a dramatic
restructuring of its organization. All the “trappings of traditional business,” as
Wired magazine put it, would be eliminated. 34 No longer would workers be tied
to desks or cubicles, or even to the office itself. They could work anywhere
they liked, according to their own schedule. And all work was to be done
virtually, i.e., on computers rather than paper. In Chiat/Day’s New York office
a conference table was “coated with a soft silicone resin that had a magnetic
effect on paper,” so anyone trying to work from a sheet of the forbidden stuff
during a meeting would find they couldn’t pick it up. “Any sightings of paper
triggered email memos reminding employees that this was supposed to be a
‘paperless office,’ with all files stored on the computer system.” 35
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