Paperless Society: The Prediction That Came Too Early, Yet Came True
Paperless Society: The Prediction That Came Too Early, Yet Came True By Azeez ADEOYE, Ph.D. Wizard Librarian, adeoyeazeezphd@gmail.com The discovery of paper was one of civilisation’s greatest achievements, an enduring innovation that seemed as if it would never fade away. For centuries, anyone who dared to predict the extinction of paper was regarded as a mad person, and rightly so. Many of us believed that such an individual must be truly insane. However, as we now stand in 2025, the once “insane” prediction of a paperless society appears to have been the wisest of all. In the early 1970s, bold predictions emerged about the coming of a “paperless society.” The concept was first formally introduced by F. W. (Frederick Wilfrid) Lancaster, an information scientist and professor at the University of Illinois, who envisioned that advances in information technology would make paper largely obsolete by the year 2000. Decades later, however, this prediction seemed far from realit...