Gutenberg's printing press
I have crossed the Rubicon and gone digital.
It all started with a Nook given to me by my son on Christmas some years ago. I quickly discovered the convenience of digital books. But it was not until earlier this year that I bit the bullet and cancelled my home delivery of the Los Angeles Times and a local paper. This was done not without a great deal of regret and wavering.
I had been a subscriber to these newspapers for well over twenty years. Day in and day out, I used to step out of my house first thing in the morning to look for my papers lying somewhere on my driveway. Those rolled up bundles were like old comforting friends, and I had nothing but gratitude to the carriers who faithfully brought them to my doorstep everyday, almost without failures.
What drove me over the edge, finally, were news stories about unscrupulous carriers who took advantage of "vacation hold" requests to rob the homes of newspaper subscribers. Gone were those innocent, trusting days. I gave e-delivery a serious investigation, and discovered that technology had advanced to the point where a digital facsimile of each complete printed edition is now available, and each section and each story can be expanded on screen at a touch. I am able to finger through the digital paper page by page, if I like; or I scan through the headlines and choose the articles I want to read. No longer is it necessary to flip back and forth to finish a story. And no longer do I haul out, each week, a recycling bin full of hundreds of printed pages, many bearing advertisements and sections of no interest to me, unread.
Digital newspapers siphoning print readers
Now I am deprived of the morning exercise of stepping out of the house for my papers. The digital edition arrives miraculously on my iPad -- a relatively inexpensive vintage model bought on sale from Walmart. On my broadband feed, the digital delivery is often choppy but -- with patience on my part -- it always does eventually get the job done. By experience, I have learned to read one publication at a time, closing each one before downloading the next. It works for me.
For now at least, the digital subscriptions are considerably less costly. The trade-off is that I do pay a little more on electricity. As a bonus, the subscriptions even provide access to back copies of the most recent two weeks, and I can read them all while traveling anywhere in the world where wifi reaches.
To be sure, I miss the old-time pleasure of leafing through Sunday papers in leisure. Funny thing is: with the printed version, I used to often miss out on stories at the top of the pages spread out on my dining table. Now, it is just the opposite. As it is cumbersome to scroll up and down on the small screen of the iPad, I end up often overlooking the articles at the bottom -- happily where most advertisements sit. Reading cartoon strips -- especially the wordy ones -- is challenging on a small screen. Then again, no longer am I subject to jarring photos whose colors do not line up; nor do I now ever turn to page 10 to continue reading an article, only to forget what headline I am supposed to look for.
My friends -- many of them book lovers -- look askance whenever I mention that I have abandoned paper copies. I was a voracious reader of the print media until now, and I sincerely hope that printed words will be with us forever. But this change to e-papers has been good to me, and, with due apology to Gutenberg, I am not going back.
