I remember reading a portion of Rubbish: The Archeology of Garbage in which Raji points out that paper consumption has increased exponentially over the past decades in spite of the technological revolution. In fact, Raji points out that technology has served more as a fertility drug than a contraceptive in paper consumption.
I propose a theory that I’m hoping someone may comment on its plausibility (as well as offer some suggestions as to how to test the theory)
Its my opinion that increases in paper consumption is merely a short-term occurrence due more too adaptive expectations than decreased costs of paper consumption.
For example, imagine life years before the internet and computer based software. In this world information would be incredibly costly to acquire, and thus why there would be an incentive to collect such information and store it so that resources wouldn’t need to be spent at later periods of time in recollecting. Now, couple this tradition with new technology that allows you to print-on-demand. Individuals are thus operating under the tradition of high search costs even though such search costs are now low.
If this is indeed the case, then younger people who have grown up with the internet, and other software for reading, should print less than individuals in higher age brackets.
Simply, in time as the tradition of high search costs fade, so will paper consumption.
Thoughts?