I think it’d look something like this:
50 years: Textbooks mostly gone from schools in many developed countries. Paper might be used occasionally when tech isn’t working, but teaching will be done mostly on computers or tablets. Most kids will have “ugly” handwriting because of they rarely write. The devices kids use to learn might be provided by the school, or some schools school might require kids to bring their own as part of a back to school supplies list.
In the adult world, paper will be mostly gone except like militaries or certain government agencies where secrecy is important. Certain jobs where there are safety procedures to be followed will still have paper instruction manuals.
For the average person’s home, there will be no paper except perhaps a small amount of people who still carry cash. Privacy-concious people will still write on paper. Everyone else just use their phone notes app.
In developing/undeveloped countries, they will be mostly the same but lagged behind developed countries like 30 years.
100 years: Paper is near extinct. Schools no longer have paper except one or two packs of printer paper in the main office probably for redundancy. Tech mostly don’t fail anymore, so any paper probably has been sitting on a shelf somewhere for many years. There would be very few amount of paper left in the world. For security sensitive purposes, air-gapped tablets will replace paper.
From this point on, humanity will move towards a future without paper.
But that’s just my prediction, what do you think?
I think it’s going to depend a lot. I haven’t used paper for anything for decades, and when I was graduating college back in 06 I remember one time I actually forgot how to sign a debit card slip as I just hadn’t written anything by hand for years.
I’m kind of getting back to that - I don’t have to sign slips ordering online or using a card at more and more stores.
For my job, there’s no reason to write something out on paper, but I work in IT so I assume YMMV. Written on paper is actually a significant detriment to me - I can lose it way easier, it often isn’t with me whereas digital text I can sync to different devices seamlessly. It can’t easily be backed up. I can’t copy from it or paste to it.
My sister OTOH works in consulting / planning. She uses like 3+ Monitors so she can see what she’s referencing to then work on a document - but it’s still all digital AFAIK.
So there’s groups of people who paper doesn’t help at all. I think the main use of paper is sticky notes to tell UPS to pick up a package left out, and the shipping labels.
Then I can imagine people who are artists who just like paper (I know someone like that). People like me who might like some books as collectibles / high quality / art in themselves. (Look up Folio Society for examples) People who don’t work all day at a digital device. Older people who find paper and pen easier and faster than getting a device (I’m swapped - it’s a higher cognitive load to go find blank paper and a working pen).
I do think we’ll see general paper use trend downwards like physical letters have since the 1990s. Because it’ll cost more, you’ll need to go out of your way to have it on hand etc.
I also work in IT and found writing down stuff helps me solve problems and remember things better. So I got an e-ink tablet to write the stuff I want to write, but I’m still able to view the stuff I’ve written and it also got OCR if I really need it in a better formatable way.
Don’t you write the sorting function on a piece of paper when interviewing for a software developer position?