I was sitting in a coffee shop when I noticed it. A solitary newspaper lay untouched on one of the tables. Aside from that one table, every seat was taken. For the next hour, no one dared sit at the seat with the newspaper. One couple even decided to sit on the heating vent instead of venturing over. Moreover, everyone had laptops or iPads, and everyone was playing games, writing novels, or reading books online. No one was reading the news. That was when I looked down at my own "reading." I was on the International Movie Database (IMDB), checking to see if Jim Carrey was in any upcoming movies.
News readership is dwindling, but I never stopped to think about the repercussions that could have. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, there was a 5% decrease in newspaper circulation in 2010, and twice that percentage in 2009. Years ago, the newspaper was something worth paying for. Now it's not fit unless it's free. Although online news readership is up, the reading of news is not the same as it used to be, and I will explain what I mean later in the article.
I happen to be in a very unique position to witness this decline in news readership. Last year, I graduated from college, and this year I am immersed in the "real world." I have been fortunate enough to see both younger and older generations interact with the news, and how their approach to news has changed over time. Many believe that it is only the younger generation that does not read the news. While that may have been true a few years ago, this habit of not reading the news has become increasingly common for those outside of Generation Y and Z. While this is only my opinion, it is difficult for many to deny that what people consider "reading the news" has changed drastically over time, and I will provide an example later.
This all stems from technology. Technological advances have (for the most part) created a monoculture with individualistic tendencies. What I mean by this is that everyone is the same in the fact that they all want to be unique through the same technologies. The news is delivered to us, but we read what we want. Yes, it has always been that one could pick through the newspaper and read what interested him or her, but now it is even more catered to the individual.
If I only want to be notified of humorous stories, I can make that happen. If I want to search for a specific story or story type, I can find it myself?I don't have to be given it. Not only can I choose what I want to receive, I can also easily choose from what free medium (notice I did not say news site) I want it from.
The news has become totally personalized. If all I am interested in is Kim Kardashian, and I read five articles a day about her that I get from Twitter, does that mean I read the news? Today, it does. This personalization is killing news subscriptions. Why should I pay for the New York Times for two articles I'm interested in when I can do a Google search and see what interests me there. It's all free, and at my immediate disposal.
But is all of this a problem for us as a culture? To me, that question is tough to answer. A better question to ask would be, is this a problem that people will actually care about? The answer is becoming a louder and louder, "no". There are harsh ramifications to the way we view all news: community, domestic, international or other. Soon, the citizens of the United States will become even more detached from the world, and more immersed within their own little dominions.
Because of this, news subscriptions will continue to plummet, free search for news will increase, and the whole cycle will start again. I do not view technology as a plague on society. I simply feel that with the individualistic tendencies garnered by the more popular technologies today, many digital savvy people will grow farther and farther apart from each other and from the rest of the world. We are not media literate people. We know the purpose of the technologies, but do we know how to use them effectively? Of course, this is all my opinion. Maybe tomorrow I'll pick up that newspaper, but for now I'm going to find out who Britney Spears married this time.
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