As many of you may have noticed, people are relying less and less on paper. In my opinion this is a blessing. I am pretty sure that I am not the only blind person who hates paper. I don't hate paper in principle, but unless the paper has braille on it, then it is completely useless to me.
I bring up this issue because last night I went to a function where about every 10 minutes I was asked to take pieces of paper. I politely declined in every instance because it honestly would end up in my recycle bin at home. I do have an OCR program that will allow me to turn text on a piece of paper into an accessible format, but scanning takes time and effort. If I have it my way, paper will become a thing of the past.
The end of paper may hurt certain industries like publishers and mail carriers, but here are some of my reasons why getting rid of paper will only make the lives of the blind better.
• Full Access to Newspapers, magazines and books: The internet allows the visually impaired to read what we want to read. We get to pick and choose just like the sighted world. More access to information should mean better inclusion in society.
⁃ Accessible Forms: If paper is eliminated, than one day maybe I'll get to fill out all of my own forms, including medical, employment, and requests for services. Visually impaired people have their privacy invaded all the time because someone else has to fill out a lot of forms for us.
• Control of Finances: Online banking means that I can do all of my financial transactions without help. This increases independence and pride.
I am sure that there are many more benefits. If you can think of some please comment about it.
How do you think life would be different without paper? What kind of jobs would a paperless society open to the blind?
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Identification by Color, Not for Me
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by Donna J. Jodhan
When I had sufficient vision, I used to depend heavily on colors to help me
identify things. I could remember that when I was growing u...
4 days ago
I'm sick of filling out forms every time I go to a doctor's office. Computers have been around forever, and we keep hearing about the paperless society--I want it to happen, and it seems like we're nudging that direction, but too slowly for my taste.
ReplyDeleteI think restraunts and Hotels should use glass plates and bowls other than paper and normal silverware other than plastic. But i still like reading books and things because i always dont have the internet arownd me. But if restrants and hotels cut down on the paper and plastic we would have way more trees in the rainforest.
ReplyDeletepaper isn't the only thing bad for rainforest red meats, plastic and oil are too and what would happen to money you can't have money completely online. its not as if everyone can afford Ipads if you look around you might realize you are surrounded by paper. it would be hard to have a paper free world in a few hundred years maybe but not today
ReplyDelete