Bill and statements. Hardly the sort of mail to brings joy to one's heart.

Was I surprised by the Communisis-commissioned research showing that getting on for 75% of people (the survey involved just under 2,000 people, aged between 16-65), still received paper statements from financial services providers and/or utilities? No of course not. The leccy bill, for example, only shows up once a quarter so what's the big deal?

I would be far more interested in a breakdown of people who've canned the more onerous sheaves of paper, such as monthly phone and bank statements, which is the case with this household. Also of note would be the success of campaigns such as the one embarked upon by British Gas some six years ago, when it offered a £10 carrot to encourage customers to switch to paperless billing. Other big billers have mounted similar drives too.

I was pretty surprised at this, though, from the Communisis study: "In terms of age group, surprisingly the 18-24s, alongside 35-44 year olds, were found to be the biggest advocates of the paper statement, showing that despite the digital revolution young people still value traditional communication techniques." I would have imagined that our screen-based young folk in particular would be app- and internet-based for this sort of stuff.

Back in 2003 James Shand described the enablers for paperless billing as "greater penetration of internet access, the adoption of broadband and the development of 'consolidators' - websites that allow transactions with multiple utilities on one site". We're part of the way there at least. It's hard to see a bright future for bills.