The Paper Pile at Home: Adopting Personal Electronic Records

Abstract

Research has found that if respondents do not manage their personal records such as bills, receipts and tax-related documents efficiently, they risk not being able to re-find them when needed, resulting in significant problems. A significant gap in understanding and addressing this problem stems from a lack of knowledge of the format of these records, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, that may have caused an increase in managing personal records in an electronic format, rather than by hardcopy. This paper provides results of quantitative research conducted in 2018, thereby providing a valuable benchmark for future research on the same and related topics. This measurement was achieved by means of an online survey distributed via social media amongst 205 respondents. The results revealed that nearly all respondents (97%) retained at least some records, and more than 80% kept some of those records in an electronic format, particularly travel reservations and payslips. Conversely, only 10% of respondents kept receipts and warranties for appliances or medical records in an electronic format. The reason for these differences in propensity of keeping various records in an electronic or hardcopy format will require further research.

Practices and pain points in personal records

“…Our research draws on the themes identified in the field of personal information management, which includes research in the workplace and academic settings. We use the phrase personal electronic records management to refer to practices for managing everyday records, such as bills, warranties, insurance renewals or health records and compare these to personal information management practices that have been the subject of research conducted in workplaces, and particularly amongst knowledge workers and students (Balogh, 2022;Balogh et al, 2022aBalogh et al, , 2022bButtfield-Addison, 2014). While we acknowledge the blurring of boundaries as working from home becomes more common, we do not address the management of information relating to work at home, nor artefacts that may be catered for by specialist software, such as photo or music management applications.…”

“…It has been found that in using email as a tool for personal information management, people adopt similar behaviour that they use when managing their paper documents and files, such as whether they sort emails into folders or leave all their emails in the in-box (Bellotti et al, 2003;Grbovic, et al, 2014;Whittaker et al, 2011). Recent research found that tax documents, appliance receipts, and manuals were more likely to be retained in hardcopy, while payslips, bank statements and travel documents were more likely to be retained electronically (Balogh, 2022).…”

“…We refer to the information managed at home as records (from the records management literature) to reference the variety of information and documents that people retain, such as emails, bills, and notes (Balogh, 2022;Balogh et al, 2022a;Shepherd & Yeo, 2003;Yeo, 2018). The word records also accommodates the diversity of formats in which information and documents may manifest.…”

Attributes of Personal Electronic Records

“…68 Research in 2018 found that over 80% of respondents received at least some of their personal records electronically. 69 Crawford and colleagues developed a system, 'i-ems', that took into account the sender's email address and keywords in the subject and body of the email to predict how the email should be categorised. The predicted category was provided to the user as a suggestion, which the user could accept or amend.…”