the ink is the only problem
Last week I finally ordered a subscription to the local newspaper. It was something that I had been planning on doing for awhile but I had never gotten around to it. One might be tempted to think that since I am such a technology person, and since news is readily available online, I would have nothing to do with this relic of 19th century communication. To some extent, I would say you are right. I do get quite a lot of news online. But still, there is something about sitting down everyday for a few minutes and flipping through the newsprint pages that is positively appealing.
The fact that this is a unique avenue for hearing about the local goings-on, reading the voices of local opinions, or getting a targeted collection of world news is really not even the point. I bought the paper for the experience, for the daily ritual of newspaper reading without the plastic and electronic world of the keyboard, mouse and monitor that it affords me.
I do, in fact, love my technology, but its sort of sad how technology is replacing humanity (even without sentient, homicidal robots).The idea of a paperless society has been floating around for some time now, most of my life even. I don’t doubt that is where we may end up eventually. On one hand I welcome it. I would love to be able to do a text search on a book I am reading to go back and find some tidbit of information I had forgotten. I like being about to communicate effortlessly at any time day or night with whoever I want where ever they are in the world. But on the other hand, the more technology we have, the more it removes from what was once the halmarks of the human experience. At one time, calling someone meant you stopped by the home and had long converstations over a cup of tea; your transportation was your pet; and stuff that you bought might have been expensive but it lasted a lifetime. Today we have traded the quaility of communication, of connection, of creation for quantity. We make two minute phone calls. We have 200 people that we have only surface relationships with. We buy things to be used for a day, a week, a year and then happily throw it out only to go out a buy a new cheap, disposable replacement.
Bringing this back around, that is why I find myself every morning with a fresh paper on my doorstep despite the veritable mountain of news which sits constantly at my fingertips, just waiting to be googled.