Paper or Plastic? Do you recall a specific time and place when this inquiry became a part of your decision-making process at the grocery store? If this question was never asked of you and you’ve only known the plastic bags with handles that serve so well as small garbage-can liners, ask an older relative if they remember carrying groceries in a paper sack. For those of us who do recall the proper way to store and fold a paper grocery bag, perhaps you can offer those skills to crime scene investigators because they appear to be the rare part of society still using this method as a way to transport materials.
Even though I teach courses like environmental health and nutrition where we debate the complications that plastics bring to our current culture, this post instead will focus on the Paper or Plastic debate that arises as a result of living in the digital age. Of particular interest to me lately has been an attempt to find successful strategies to assist Emerging Adults, and even my very Seasoned self, to navigate a world where the choice between Paper or Plastic isn’t quite as simple as only considering the impact on nature. It’s a complicated issue and there are two distinctive areas where this binary option can have significant impact: reading and time management. With no clear research that one option is preferable in all situations, individuals are asked to use discernment and wisdom to make a personal selection, often needing to rely on their Digital Philosophy that hopefully arose out of the cultivation of a Habit of Awareness.
Let’s examine the reading issue first. Which is the better option: a physical paper book or an electronic device such as a Kindle or iPad? Most of this issue is outlined in the post Screen Culture, so I won’t repeat the debate here, but it opens the door into the next issue that I am personally struggling with, and in conversations with my students, there isn’t a clear option here either. Is Paper or Plastic better for a time management system? Having the option to outsource our calendars to a “plastic” version on our phones and devices, is this a better strategy than the “paper” version of a day planner or calendar system?
For those of you who are retired or have never maintained a calendar at all, I’m sure your thoughts lean towards some version of “Who cares?” However, for those of us detail-oriented, scrapbooking, capture-it-all people, a day planner is a vital tool in managing our lives. And as I browse through the heavy plastic tote in the attic, I treasure combing the datebooks from a mid-1980s teenager, seeing what events captured enough value for her to make a notation for the record. But somewhere around the mid-2000s, I can see where the transition to the digital world was made and after two decades, I’m considering a return to the paper system, or at least a combination of the two. One significant personal reason comes from seeing these hand-written entries into the 2005-06 Union academic planner:
- Had Ela while Christie went to school. I think she smiled on August 9
- Brady Dennsion, 8-2, 20 ½” on August 11
- Talked to Karol; she asked me to be the baby’s godmother on August 22
- Haley Lynn, 6 lbs/15 oz., 19 inches, 10:57 p.m. on December 6.
All of these life-giving moments alongside of everyday items such as “GO Trip Meeting” and fitness records.
For me, turning page after page and seeing hand-written notations has much more substance than the notebooks containing a computer-printed report; however, convenience dictated that having a calendar on my phone was much more efficient. So, what are the tradeoffs between choosing Paper or Plastic? Scientific research seems to show little interest in this dilemma (waiting to read one article in publication), but I consider it a fascinating topic and what impact it has on our flourishing at life in the Screen Culture in which we now find ourselves.
Depending on who you ask, even experts in student success at our university, the jury is still out. It seems to be more of a personal preference, but I want to encourage our students to not pitch the paper calendar, because there are multiple benefits to using both Paper and Plastic. In one study attempting to experiment with both methodologies, researchers found that “people using paper calendars were more likely than digital-calendar users to carry out their scheduled activities, and it showed that this happened because they were better able to take a big-picture view of their plans.” So, the efficiency and convenience of a digital device is not to be ignored, but as mentioned in Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, there is more to human flourishing than just being productive, and reading timeless hand-written notes reminds me that we are embodied and created creatures living our lives side-by-side on this incredible pilgrimage of life.
So, where do you land in the Paper or Plastic debate for your time management system? Do you use one or the other or both? How does your approach impact your relationship with time? Does it cause you to mindfully Take It Slow or to follow the Hustle Culture without much consideration of the big-picture view? Please consider sharing your thoughts in the comments below.
Reference:
Don’t Ditch Your Paper Calendar. (2022). Harvard Business Review, 100(5), 25.
Flourishing @ Life 
I personally prefer the paper and handwritten style. I do use my phone to take notes in chapel and occasionally at other events. However, for the most part, I always have some kind of notebook with me. My planner is paper and I like having a physical copy of it. I like being able to check off my to-do list because it gives me a feeling of satisfaction. I also enjoy having a visual of my schedule on my desk at all times. This keeps me motivated and aware of what I have to do. I have always been a fan of notebooks. I have various notebooks from the past five years of just sermons. I have notebooks for various other things as well as notebooks for all of my classes. I do utilize “plastic” when necessary, but for now, I see myself staying with a mostly paper way of doing things.
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When I saw the paper or plastic concept, I assumed that this would be based on environmental pursuits. I enjoyed reading a different perspective on this debate. I tend to use both systems depending. I love my paper planner, but I plan my weekly schedule on my iPad. If I need a book quickly, I can get it on iBooks immediately. On the opposite end, when I go to the beach, I use paper books. This way it can get wet and sandy. I actually like this, because a year later, I look back on the wet sandy book and associate the concept with the beach. I think that electronics are more appealing because if I need to know what I am doing at 6:30PM, I can’t go search for my planner. It’s on my phone, in my pocket. This is why I lean to electronics for notes, accessibility. I prefer paper for everything from planning, note taking, reading, and journaling, but it is less feasible.
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For me personally I have never liked reading from a tablet or iPad, if I must read, I have always preferred it to be on paper. When I read for longer than ten to fifteen minutes on an electronic device, I begin to have me a headache because of the light. I do not use a daily planner or my calendar app. But when I was growing up my parents used a paper calendar which I hope to use one day in my house. It helped us keep track of soccer practices, games, and other events/trips. I think it is helpful to have something physical.
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I really enjoyed reading this article because I feel like in the modern day of technology being a part of basically every aspect of life, it is often a forgotten topic. Personally, I have always learned better from handwritten notes in school, anything on my phone or computer I find often lacks detail and my own personality, I also know that once I turn it off, that I mostly likely will not open it again. However, the part of the article that really struck me was finding the old diaries and photo albums and being immersed in our old selves for a moment. I still love finding the diary I kept in 5th grade and reading it with my sisters just laughing and loving all the funny notes and daily updates. And on birthdays every year my mom takes out the photo albums of when we were babies, and every year we all find joy in looking back. These are the reasons that paper will always be a part of my life.
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I love that your mom created that tradition.
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Growing up I never really cared about the paper or plastic debate i just used whatever was most convenient for me at the time. It was not until covid that i realized that i have moved to the plastic or “electronic side. Due to covid i never needed to use paper because everything was online so when we were able to go back to school i didn’t even enjoy the thought of writing on paper. Like i literally used to hate writing because i didn’t do it for like a year in a half everything was electronically. Now, reading on the other hand I never used real paper books because i didnt wanna flip the pages back and forth but i realized when i read a paper book one time that it was easier to focus and understand what i was reading because there were not distractions. So from then on I started trying to read paper books more and more to stay away from electronics
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I am someone who is sort of passive on this subject. I am personally not a huge reader, but when I do I tend to prefer reading from paper. I feel like for me I tend to have trouble focusing on reading when it is on a device. Devices are more powerful than the computers NASA used to send the first man to the moon. Having all these capabilities, I think can distract from some of the simple tasks that they provide. I’d like having certain things that provide a standalone function, such as a calendar or a journal. I am a very nostalgic person and items like these tend to hold a very nostalgic value to them and when stored away in a vast array of information on one’s phone, I feel like the value is lost.
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