There are absolutely benefits to software over paper but they feel hamstrung by the constant desire to roll out the next UI paradigm. Sooner or later the set of constraints between device, OS and app versions forces an upgrade. Security updates should be the only reason to even hint at that possibility IMO.
Maybe I’m just too close to the problem. If I squint enough I can see how a pen running out of ink is like an app crash, and replacing the pen/ink has a real, nonzero environmental cost. I’m not sure how to amortize the costs of device manufacture and software development across all bugs, and compare that to the costs/benefits of pen and paper. There is some shade of rose on my glasses, no doubt.
I need more information, but I sense it’s not the kind of information that is important to many people, and especially corporations, to gather.
Interesting analogy. I think a closer analogy to a pen running out of ink and having to grab another pen, is a laptop battery running low and having to be plugged in.
I do art on paper and even I don't go through 500 pages in a year. It's at work, things like 60 page reports that need to be printed for submission (and then get printed 2x or 3x again because you can replicate it).
The ease of printing documents is the culprit, you can just replicate large physical artifacts again and again. You can't do that with your personal notes that probably only exist as unique artifacts and maybe get scanned into a digital archive.
The moment you introduce software and internet connectivity is the moment you invite fragility and inscrutability.
With a computing device, only if you are certain there is no wifi/bluetooth/cellular/etc hardware inside the device, can you have a similar trust. And the days are rapidly coming when there's no such thing as a device without such hardware, not even a watch.
With computing devices, you do get the ability to encrypt data at rest, so for example, a locked physical paper diary is less secure in that sense than an encrypted text file. But the possible number of actors that would attempt to break the security for a physical paper document is much lower, only whoever is nearby, not everyone on the entire internet.
If I had something I really didn't want to get out, these days, I'd be much more likely to recommend the use of a notebook in a safe than an encrypted file on a laptop or phone or something. It doesn't matter how encrypted it is if my device gets compromised.
(If it had to be electronic, it'd be a laptop with no working networking hardware, in a safe.)
Good news everyone, Paper supports MSPen 2.3.4.5.3.2...., GPen 1.10.1.0.11 "Lumpsucker", iPen 4.2.0 (8 new colors!), and the AmaWEbLumberPen (AWELP)
We're happy to report we've solved the issue of Paper randomly vanishing from your house, and reappearing on your roof.
Security exploits with D4r|<9@nc1l and Y+e()v+ have been discovered, and we're working on a fix. In the meantime, please update your Paper password (remember not to write it down)
Minor issues with Paper flickering (and in a limited user group causing epilepsy seizures and incontinence) have been mitigated.
We're aware of Paper occasionally causing i#Desk models to collapse, and working to close the loop.
We're also happy to report we've been sold to ShredderCo.! Congratulations to the team for going the extra mile, and we expect a bright future in their exciting and challenging area of business.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/16hqcly/good_news_ev...
I have swung back around and now buy many physical books/blurays/etc for things I really love or think are important because my faith that companies/govt won't decide I cant have that version anymore is very low.
I just love the smell of a freshly sharpened pencil made with good quality wood and the feel of it gliding across the paper. There’s a friction and give to it that you can’t get with a touch screen made of hard glass. No matter how good the stylus or what coating you put on the screen, it’ll never have the (cushiony, slightly rough but smooth) feel of a good writing pad or notebook.
And of course it’s fairly easy to digitize your handwritten scribbles, if that’s what you want to do. I just use a scanner app on my phone and take a picture. The app detects the borders of the page and corrects the geometry automatically. I also have it convert the colours down to 1-bit for maximum contrast and to get the background solid white. But that’s only when I need to send it somewhere, otherwise I don’t bother scanning.
Hate is a strong word, and I hate typing on phones or tablets by trying to hit small shapes behind glass with the tips of my fingers.
I like the feel of pencils, particularly softer ones like 2B, 3B, or 4B, on paper, preferably those with texture like recycled brown paper that is often used as a tablecloth in Italian trattorias, the good ones, that aren’t too expensive.
The smell of pencil lead and paper and the sound that a pencil marking paper makes both help me absorb and remember things.
Betty Edwards wrote Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, and Frank R. Wilson wrote The Hand: How Its Use Shapes the Brain, Language, and Human Culture. Both warmly recommended.
Except for the most obsessive & technically skilled archivists, nobody will have any photos/documents from today in 100-150 years.
You can to the same extent that you can access a smart phone on the go. You just have to remember to bring it with you. Given how often I "forget" my smart phone at home, the "access anywhere" isn't a huge selling feature for most things to me. While I do use web-based email, I tend to prefer things like paper tickets for events and paper receipts because I actually find them to be more convenient than digital. This is because having to have a smart phone with me at all times that could get lost, stolen, damaged, malfunction etc. and is a single point of failure in the event thereof is the polar opposite of my definition of convenience.
No one has made the argument that paper is without problems. Only that it has way fewer problems than digital. That, and that the businesses and shills that are trying to force digital-everything are evil monsters that belong in the same rung of hell typically reserved for murderers and people who talk at movie theatres.
I suspect that many people associate durability with electronic media simply because it becomes obsolete so rapidly that we don't experience it in the same way. We don't know whether that dusty floppy disk or CD-R is readable since we disposed of our last computer with a drive, or we associate the failure of a flash drive with a cheap drive rather than the intrinsic properties of the media, or we attribute it to abuse. We rarely have the opportunity to use something until it is worn out, or pick it up after a quarter century in storage.
Modern media is incredibly fragile. The chief advantage it has (in terms of longevity) is its digital nature, in our ability to reproduce it exactly. Yet that is only an advantage if we actively maintain our archives.
The same thing has happened with flash drives already, how do you identify a good flash drive? If you aren't careful you'll end up with a counterfeit but even the genuine articles have shaky reputations and manufacturers change the internal parts all the time.
That said, such things did happen in the past. Paper is the classic example since the manufacturing process affected its longevity, yet many other materials are graded based upon their properties.
Or probably because paper or other media has already stood the trial of time, there are some papyrus dating around 2500BC that’s more than 4000 years ago, now think if any of the tools needed for current media will be available 4000 years from now.
And when you're dealing with a high quantity of information, good luck searching through thousands of sheets of paper for something.
You immediately get to mix text, tables and pictures. You can do it however you want. You can arrange it however you want.
Nothing beats this. Digital tools might be good at organizing old notes but I feel it is not necessary most of the time.
I feel the same, only without the maybe.
It just struck me that taking a picture of the white board and sending it to the printer would add up to acceptable use of technology. I have no idea why I never thought of that before. It seems actually nice to uses. (provided you delete the picture from drives, clouds, backups and trashcans)
For note taking, I prefer pen and paper. For diagramming and brainstorming, I prefer a physical whiteboard. For non-work related scheduling, I prefer marking things on the physical calendar hanging on my wall... or sometimes I'll reach for a post-it note.
For bills, I prefer that my company mail me a paper bill. Especially if accessing the e-bill requires me to have an account with a web app and enable MFA and change my password every 90 days and always have Okta give me problems when I want to check my bill and thus need to jump through these hoops those whopping 12 times per year that I need this information.
Maybe it's because I see how the sausage is made. Maybe it's because I use some sort of eletronic device all day for work. But the last thing I want to do when I need to jot something down quickly is reach for a phone or a laptop. Heck, most of the time I don't even remember (or care) where I left my phone.