It's common to find online commentators celebrating the decline of traditional media, such as newspapers and magazines, over ideological bias and perceived entanglement in a corrupt political system. The idea that online media is free of those things is laughable, of course. The left and right alike have Youtube channels, blogs and online magazines catering to their political satisfaction, while both the current and previous Presidents of the United States, Barack Obama and Donald Trump, used online activism and media to great effect during their electoral campaigns. The online and printed media share many of the same faults, but with the key difference that printed media is governed by editorial standards where the online media is open to anyone and everyone, regardless of talent or intention.
For that reason alone, the slow demise of physical media is a sad thing indeed. For its myriad faults, our societies will only be less stable and more dogmatic should that demise come to pass. This article is not about editorial standards, though, important as they are. It's about an under-appreciated benefit of picking up a newspaper and magazine and reading it cover to cover: the acquisition of unintended knowledge.
One of the loudest criticism against social media is how it forms online bubbles. The major social media sites have algorithms pick and choose what people are exposed to based on what they and their friends like, react to and share. This means that significant numbers of people are only exposed to information which validates their existing biases. Though this is more common amongst left-leaning users than those on the right, this is likely down to the users and regulators of Twitter, the biggest social media site for young people to share information, being more left-leaning. It is not as though the right is short of online resources, most infamously Breitbart, to validate its dogma.
The issue is not limited to social media, though that is undoubtedly where the worst of it occurs. It is that almost nothing we read online comes to us unexpectedly, whether it is chosen through an algorithm or through our conscious selection. The way in which online magazines are read is very different from physical magazines. Online, every article is presented at once and it is down to the reader to pick what to read and what to exclude. Because human beings are inclined towards both self-validation and righteous anger, a reader self-selecting his articles acts in the same way as the social media algorithm, choosing only that which will provoke either feelings of safety or anger.
Physical media may have clear biases and readers may select the outlet whose bias most closely aligns with their own, but reading a real newspaper or magazine is far less of an individualised experience. It is, in a sense, the difference between government by democracy and government by referenda. In the latter, as online, one participates on an issue-by-issue basis. In the former, one elects representatives broadly aligned with your views - as one chooses a newspaper - and trusts them to make the appropriate choices for your well-being. Media is read online in non-linear fashion, with the headline of every article offered at once and no order governing the reader's selection. By contrast, the physical reader comes across articles by surprise, forced to go page by page and exposed to each piece individually and in its entirety.
It is of course still possible to make such choices: one's exposure to an uninteresting article extends only until the page is turned. The difference is that physical media requires an investment which online media does not. Some of that is literal: most online media is free, which means there is no cost to picking and choosing what one wishes to see. Information behind a paywall carries a psychological weight which free information does not because it requires the reader to make a small sacrifice to acquire it. Although free newspapers are becoming more common in the UK - poorly written, disposable rags designed only to kill time on train journeys - the most respected publications still charge for each issue or subscription. Readers are just as capable of skipping articles in paid publications, but to do so is to make a subconscious cost-value analysis over whether it is worth increasing the effective cost of the pieces that are selected.
Physical effort is another, as absurd as it sounds. Clicking on an article online, and then the back button if it doesn't match with the reader's hopes, takes only a flick of a finger. The act of holding a newspaper and turning the page demands a small but important physical investment in the act of reading. Studies have suggested that readers require less effort to read physical media and remember more of it afterwards.
I would argue that a lot of this is down to the perceived value of physical information and the investment in acquiring it. It is easier to concentrate and process information with value than when reading information without. When reading online, it's easy to become distracted or have one's attention caught by something else: thus, reading an article all the way through at once requires a more concerted effort. With physical media, the existing investment - financial and physical - gives a greater sense of importance to what one is reading - not to mention how physical reading engages the sense of touch, giving the act of reading a tangible realness - making it easier to concentrate.
This is a long-winded way of reaching the ultimate point of this article, which is that in making the act of reading a linear path where every word has an investment value, readers are more likely to spend time assimilating knowledge they had not anticipated and might otherwise not be exposed to. Although my faux-academic jargon of 'assimilating knowledge' and 'acquiring information' gives the impression that this is simply a matter of mechanical calculation (more information = improved function), the meaningful benefits are spiritual.
Being manipulated into strong emotional reactions has become so commonplace that it can be easy to forget how small and mundane everyday life is in the real world. By encouraging readers to engage with articles that might not grip the senses in the same way as the latest political travesty, physical media gives a broader, more balanced perspective on the world. Reading pieces which might not be especially shocking, funny or big in scope grounds the act of learning in a more authentic, thoughtful form. It acts as a refresher on our consciousness, providing a break from non-stop provocation to take the time to learn out of curiosity rather than urgency. For all its failings, that's why the collapse of physical media should be mourned: not for the news, but for the unexpected lines in-between.
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