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  3. Read carefully the following two excerpts about paperless office, which has been the focus of attention for a long time, and the

Read carefully the following two excerpts about paperless office, which has been the focus of attention for a long time, and the

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问题 Read carefully the following two excerpts about paperless office, which has been the focus of attention for a long time, and then write your response in NO LESS THAN 300 WORDS, in which you should：
1.   summarize the main message of the two excerpts, and then
2.   express your opinion on the issue, especially on whether paperless office will become a reality. You can support yourself with information from the excerpts.
Marks will be awarded for content relevance, content sufficiency, organization and language quality. Failure to follow the above instructions may result in a loss of marks.
Excerpt 1
    Paper’s Enduring Hold on the Workplace
    The idea of the paperless office is nothing new. Perhaps the first milestone was F. W. Lancaster’s "Toward Paperless Information Systems" published in 1978. At that time, the concept was futuristic. But with the rise of local area networks and adoption of the internet by business in the 1990s, the idea gathered steam. The idea seemed so obvious by 2002 that Abigail Sellen’s and Richard Harper’s "The Myth of a Paperless Office" didn’t need to explain the rationale for a paperless office, but rather why the paperless office had not yet arrived.
    The authors’ analysis focused on the unique properties of paper. Specifically, they credited paper’s staying power on its ability to afford human actions, such as grasping, carrying, manipulating, folding, and in combination with a marking tool, writing on.
    Based on a series of ethnographic studies, the authors conclude that paper will continue to predominate in activities that involve showing knowledge work, including browsing through information; reading to make sense of information; organizing, structuring, and reminding of ideas.
    The authors end the book with the following prediction:"The paperless office is a myth, because they know too well that their goals cannot be achieved without paper. This held true over 30 years ago when the idea of a paperless office first gained some prominence, and it holds true today at the start of the 21st century. We hope to have shown that it will hold true for many years to come. "
    Excerpt 2
    The Downturn in Paper Consumption
    During the period of reduction in paper usage, improvements in digital technologies made it much easier to edit, comment and share collaborative documents like contracts, proposals and reports. Examples of such technologies include text editors that enable concurrent document editing, as well as enterprise content management systems, cloud document storage, bigger and sharper computer screens, and faster networks, to name just a few.
    Adoption of these technologies didn’t occur overnight, because as with most innovations, resistance to adoption was a behavioral issue, not a technological one. However, over time, the benefits of simultaneously sharing and editing documents with many people became apparent, so digital adoption increased steadily. The days of paper documents being shuffled through physical mailboxes using routing slips was becoming a thing of the past.
    And then COVID-19 hit. The sudden migration to the home office is what really moved the needle on digital adoption. As early as April 2020, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella noted that "we’ve seen two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months. "
    As business moved to home offices, employees lost access to the office printer and graphic paper stocks provided by their employers. When provided with no other option, most of us quit printing documents cold turkey, leading to what a 2020 McKinsey report called "a drastic reduction in office-paper consumption. " The same McKinsey report observed that limited access to paper media led to a shift to digital and online consumption of media and an accelerated increase in the availability and consumption of e-books, podcasts and audiobooks.
    Another industry report pins the downturn in paper consumption on " a massive reduction in printing at offices, for conferences and other business purposes, and at schools and universities. "
    The scope of this revolution can be gauged by the reduction in paper orders. For example, since the lockdown, graphic paper manufacturer Paperwise reports "a 50% drop in turnover for photocopying paper. "
    While the drop in office printing may be good for the environment, the move to digital consumption may have other benefits as well.
选项
答案 Will Paperless Office Become a Reality? With the continuing advance of technology, paperless office has become one of the recent trends of the 21st century. Some hold that despite so much of our everyday work taking place on electronic devices and the majority of our communication passing through the digital realm, we still have a lot of paper lying around our offices. In their eyes, the paperless office never seems likely to become a reality. However, others insist that over time the benefits of paperless office will become more apparent and the days of paper documents will eventually become the past. As the sudden migration to the home office during the COVID-19 pandemic accelerates the shift to digital office, we have good reason to believe that the paperless office is possible. For my part, it’s an undeniable fact that we are becoming closer to going paperless in our workplaces. Therefore, I believe in this digital age, paperless office is no longer a dream in the near future. To begin with, saving time or money is the most important consideration for every enterprise or institution. Digital files mean less paper used for duplicate copies and they can be readily shared among many users at once, even in remote distance. To enhance work efficiency, a large number of businesses are opening up to a paperless world wider than ever before. Of course, we have to admit that the concept has been around for a long time, and there is still a long way to go before we can achieve it. Today, technology advances and good command of software by office staff have made paperless office not only possible but even attractive. Working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic has given us plenty of evidence. In this regard, I think changing working habits may be the key to going paperless. All in all, I believe that although the process will be slow, we’ll move towards paperless in the end.
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