Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

Farhad Manjoo, writing a column on the Machinist section of Salon, has an essay today entitled “Why I miss the dead-tree newspaper.” In the essay Manjoo laments the fact that, even though he realizes digital reading is the wave of the future and he has willingly given up his subscription to the daily edition of The New York Times, it’s just not the same. Manjoo writes, “Though I will never go back [to newsprint], more and more, these days, I find myself longing for the paper and the unique, perhaps irreplaceable role it played in shaping how I understood the news of the day.”

Manjoo goes on, stuffing his “paean to an antiquated technology” with a number of examples and reasons why he continues to long for newsprint in a digital world. And while I don’t agree with all of Manjoo’s reasons of why he misses print (for instance, he states that “The newspaper, first and chiefly, is easy to skim”; I myself find locating stories in a newspaper is like rifling through a dictionary to find a word), I certainly see his overall point.

Print is indeed a really great thing. People have produced and consumed it for centuries. In fact, nobody said a transition from print to digital would be easy. Therefore Manjoo’s reaction is natural and good. People love newsprint the same way they love books and magazines. But the fact that people will and do miss print has nothing to do with the efficacy of digital reading (not to mention to the inevitability of digital reading). It also doesn’t mean people are going to go down with the ship, and cling to their “antiquated technology” just because they can’t stand to live life without it.

In the end, Manjoo comes to terms with his loss, reflecting that digital reading is at the dawn of its evolution while newsprint is receding into the sunset: “The online newspaper is an infant; in time designers and engineers will surely find a way to give us a perfectly skimmable electronic broadsheet. Until then, there’s a lot I’ll miss — and mourn.” So not only is Manjoo stating that print is dead, but he’s been to the funeral and is now getting on with his (electronic) life.