Data overload kills off paperless office myth

The paperless office is a myth, according to a report from the University of California, Berkeley, with technology actually causing more of data pile-up than ever before.

Around 800MB of data is now created for every human being on the planet, an amount that's growing at around 30 per cent since 1999, according to the study, which investigated data use last year.

While the theory behind the electronic office was that it would cut down on the amount of data and storage a company would need, IT is responsible for burying the modern office under a data mountain, as firms store data electronically – and then print themselves off a hard copy for good measure. As a result, data stored on paper formats has risen by 43 per cent over the last three years.

Data headaches might be keeping CIOs up at night, but the storage companies are rubbing their hands together. The major beneficiary of the data overload is the hard drive – information stored on them has more than doubled since 1999.

In the digital world, the majority of data traffic was down to people calling each other on the phone, clocking up an impressive 98 per cent.

However, one area where tech is helping to cut down on the data mountain is photography – the advent of digital cameras and camera phone is helping to put people off hard copies of their holiday snaps.