Our society’s economy is gradually becoming  completely paperless. Society is moving primarily into an online transaction economy, bringing an end to the great era of paper money.

With online shopping websites such as Ebay and Amazon, paper money is becoming absolute. In 2013, there was an estimated 191 million online shoppers in the U.S. alone. By 2018, the number is expected to be around 215 million, in fiveyears, a predicted 24 million online shopper increase is quite substantial. With such large numbers of people switching to online payment, it is becoming more apparent that cash is slowly dying.

Biology teacher Stacy Bartlett said, “I would say that cash is dying, I would say that we use it less and less frequently, you know there’s security issues with using a credit card, just as theirs security issues keeping $10,000 cash under your mattress.”

Bartlett brings to light that their are equal risks for each choice of payment. Bartlett later explained how if her credit card was stolen, there are fail safes put in place to protect her and get her money back. While if you have $10,000 cash underneath your mattress stolen, there is no one to protect you or get your money back.

Assistant Principal Dan Ralston said, “It used to be that I’d sit down with my check book and all my bills, and then write out checks every month and send them to each of my institutions, and now I sit down with my computer and enter those things without having to do any of those paper and check statements.”

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Using online over paper payments  removes room for error, but also makes it much quicker to do normal tasks, like paying bills and other amenities. It makes it much easier to purchase clothing and pay bills. Yes, there has been recent cases of cyber-hacking were people’s account information has been stolen, but if any money was taken, they were reimbursed. Now, if someone broke into your house and took the cash out from your sock drawer, there’s no one to reimburse the money you lost. People are moving closer to keeping their money in bank accounts, and have moved to wiring cash instead of writing substantial checks.

Sophomore Franklin Nelson said, “More people are buying stuff online, it’s more convenient than having to go out and buy clothes, were you could just buy clothes from online websites.”

That’s one of the main principles of our present society. Most of our every day lives are based out of convenience. The food we eat, the clothes we wear. It is just more convenient to order clothes off a website than it is to go out and try on multiple different outfits. While the simplicity of putting in a credit card number and having your purchases sent straight to your door. Our world is becoming less and less interactive, which is why paper money will soon be a thing of the past.

Cash will never fully die, it will remain a part of our society forever, but online cash purchases, transactions and payments are becoming more and more common. With the safety and convenience of “online money”, it is an inevitable fact that our world is becoming more and more online dependent.