(News)Paper vs. Digital Media

For those of us predicting the demise of newspapers amid declining circulation and the emergence of the Web as the medium to consume news, here’s some food for thought from Katherine Hayles, who talked to the Toronto Star’s Phil Marchard during the Media Ecology Association conference recently in Mexico City.

“It’s a mistake to think that paper media of all kinds, including newspapers, are going to disappear. They have a simplicity and robustness that digital media cannot hope to equal. There’s a reason that print has reigned supreme for 500 years.”

This is probably a relevant and accurate comment for the current generation of newspaper readers, who were raised on the wonderfully tactile feel of paper and ink. For those of us who read and love newspapers, there’s pleasure in sitting with a newspaper(s) in cottage country on a beautiful summer day – which is what I’ll doing be doing later today.

But I do wonder about the next generation that don’t read newspapers, and get most of their information from the Web. Will Hayles’ declaration about paper stand the test of time? Will Facebook users, for example, become newspaper users as they get older?

Personally, I think it will because paper and digital are two different beasts that can complement each other – serving different needs at different times.