Pushing Paperless

Christopher Dawson at ZDnet asks "Why aren't students pushing paperless?"

The digital divide for one.

Though phrased rather brutally, I found this comment from Dr_Zing interesting:

First of all, the poor in this country do not have 24/7 access to the internet. Anyone who thinks they do, like you Christopher Dawson, is an urban elitist I.T. snob who's been lucky enough to still have a job.

Second, a large number of children in this country don't have 24/7 access to a computer. While there are many households with a computer, and they can be found in libraries and at schools, there is not a one computer per child ratio. But then elitist snobs who've never seen the hoops that teachers go through just to get a few hundred dollars worth of paper and pencils for all their students, much less a $500 computer per child, wouldn't understand that.

Third, there's no standard media. A plethora of different document formats, on a myriad of different storage media is a terrible way to go. I remember a few years ago doing my Master's that we went through 3 professors with 3 different sets of requirements. Hell of a way to go. You might think a rich text format on a USB 2 stick would be acceptable for most papers but the funny thing is it's still easier to drag a dozen papers into the bathroom with a red pen to make annotations on them after school.

Fourth, instructors, professors, teachers aren't consistently demanding it. And as previously mention, they don't demand it in a consistent format. Speaking of that Master's program. You know the media they required for the thesis?

Yep.

Paper.

A separate copy for each member of the review board too.

My reply was more sedate.

I can think of a couple reasons, both of which have already been touched on.

Not every kid has access to a computer; nor does every teacher. Most libraries have computers, but they're heavily used and not always available depending on how many the library has.

Adding comments and corrections is a lot more difficult in a digital document; paper and a red pen are far more convenient. Many people still find it easier to read paper than they do screens.

What really bothers me is the assumption that everyone has access to computers. In an ideal world, yes. Maybe at some point in the future, sure, but definitely not now.