Why The Daily Paper Still Beats The Internet
We now live in the age of “infinite scroll.” With just a single click, we can get access to information about everything. Yet, it feels like something is always left out. While the internet gives us instant news, it often fails to provide us with adequate news.
The Death Of The Rabbit Hole
On the internet, the algorithms decide what you will be seeing based on what you have already clicked. It creates an “echo chamber,” where you only come across those ideas you already agree with.
Every article in the newspaper is curated perfectly by the human editors, not lines of code. When you open a paper, you are forced to look at those stories you didn't know about, for example, a report on local infrastructure, a foreign dispatch from a country you have never visited or a deep dive into the arts. It makes you a citizen rather than being just a user.
Context Over Catchphrases
The internet survives on “headline culture.” If we wish to know information about some topic, we just scan a tweet or maybe a push notification which takes us to the information page, but we cannot know the exact “why.”
Newspapers are designed specifically for those who want to do line by line reading. By doing so, you can analyze the content given in a better way. While reading about something, you are not only knowing what happened and what was the outcome but what it means for the next decade.
The size and placement of a story tells you its importance, helping you to figure out the important events of the day with a sense of proportion that a chaotic Twitter feed lacks.
The Digital Cleansing
There is always a tactile joy in reading morning’s newspaper, the smell of the fresh pages, the smell of the ink, the rustle of the pages and the annoying notification of the “low battery warning.”
Reading a newspaper does not need you to have some kind of a group or notifications. It is completely a monotasking activity. There are no pop up ads, no suggested videos and no notifications pulling you into a stressful work email. It allows your brain to enter a state of deep focus, something the internet is practically designed to destroy.
The internet informs you what is happening currently, the newspaper tells you what matters!
