Let's Talk About...Print Media

Ok. Remember when we used to read Time, Newsweek, TV Guide, People, and Rolling Stone? I am talking about magazines and newspapers made from paper. The kind you hold in your hands.

My parents had the LA Times, the Sunday New York Times and the Wall Street Journal delivered to our front door. Reading the newspaper was a welcome ritual.

They collected every issue of National Geographic. That magazine's stunning photos singlehandedly opened the world to small town America. We learned about African tribes, the Great Barrier Reef, the Alaskan Inuit lifestyle, and the great red western canyons, rivers and dams.

Ah...the old days.

Almost everyone under 50 today gets their news from the internet. You know what that means? Big Brother Google decides what it thinks you are interested in and feeds you lots of whatever that is.

Do you remember when you first signed up for Google or Facebook? You checked a bunch of boxes next to words like books, gardening, politics, baseball, computer science, art, and travel. Yes, those might have been of interest to me then, but a girl evolves. Those old interests don't define me or represent who I am today or who I want to be tomorrow. I hope.

Because if all we read about are the same topics every day, how can we know what we don't know?

Time magazine covered all kinds of subjects, including the news, celebrities, science, politics and health. There is nothing like turning a page and stumbling upon an intriguing topic you hadn't anticipated. Like seeing miles of plastic floating in the ocean or a solar eclipse.

Without looking specifically for those topics, I would regularly find myself drawn into the stories, the photos, and the people who are experts in areas I hadn't considered. That is how I got interested in starfish, for example.

But if I rely only on my phone and computer for the news, all I see are my politics and my current interests. Can I grow that way?

As much as I like Bruce Springsteen, recipes, make up, and horses, despite what the internet thinks, that is not all I want to read about.

On the other hand, once you do a deep dive into a new area, like starfish, for example, the internet is then certain all you want to read about are fish and the ocean. Yes, I do want to read about fish and the ocean, but I also want to read about the Amish and recycling and charities and the plight of those stolen girls in Africa.

Don't even get me started on TV Guide. All your weekly TV viewing used to sit in the palm of your hand. Now you have to ask Hulu what it thinks you might be interested in watching.

Not only do I miss the content diversity of paper magazines and newspapers, but there is something tactile about turning pages that gives you a sense of immediacy and connectivity that clicking some buttons on a phone or computer does not.

In addition to seeing news differently and seeing different news, paper newspapers and magazines offer the simple satisfaction and pleasure of turning a page.

Paper newspapers and magazines also have that unique fragrance of freshly printed media that the internet cannot duplicate. Do you remember that? Go ahead and take a whiff. It is like a second cousin to that bygone intoxicating smell of leaded gasoline.

You know you enjoy reading the Left Hand Valley Courier more when it is in print than the other three weeks when it is only online. The content may be the same, but the experience is quite different.

If you don't know what I am talking about, I suggest the next time you are at the airport, try 1. Finding, and then, 2. Reading a physical newspaper or magazine. From cover to cover. You may not be excited about every article, but I guarantee something new will grab your interest.

And when it does, be sure to tell the Google. Your senses will thank you.