Poll: The future of the printed word

[Nivag the Owl]

I personally don't think the printed world will never cease to exist. And by that, I mean I doubt people will stop writing, I don't mean all books and texts will be burned and forgotten about. If any form of entertainment medium is going to die out, written text isn't one of them.

 

[poleboy]

Somewhere far off into the future, I think paper books will be replaced with some medium that is almost indistinguishable from them, but more ecologically stable. On a basic level, it will be the same. Our eyes aren't built to read massive amounts of text from a typical monitor and probably never will be, without extensive modification.

As for newspapers and magazines, I think they will slowly disappear over the next hundred years or so, as the last people who grew up without lots of computers around them die out. I don't see the problem in this though. I know lots of journalists. Most of them simply work online or for TV instead of tradtitional newspapers.

 

[minoes]

What happend to the "It will not die" option?

 

[photog212]

What happend to the "It will not die" option?

I realized that error shortly after posting but I'm a bit of a pessimist. I apologize. (can I fix the poll or is it to late?)

 

[photog212]

Also, I find it interesting that those who are most adamant about reading tend to not be from the States. Being from the US, I was curious to see what those to the north and across the pond had to say on the issue.

 

[Uncompetative]

iPod touch WiFi Safari web browser: any information anywhere you can sit and have a hot drink.

 

[BallPtPenTheif]

Put up an option for Not Dying, because despite the interwebs people still have a thing for collecting crap.

 

[mattttherman3]

I still read the news paper, especially at work when access to a computer is impossible sometimes.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

Look up "Electronic Ink"

The kindle will be obselete in a few years and your entire book can be held in a single page.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Why no option for the printed words survival?
Put one up you muppet!


Anyway, books, magazines and newspapers will never truly die out. For one thing I and millions of people do actually like to read real books. Which is where things like the iPod touch, laptops and DS fall down, they are not books. Staring at a screen is not as relaxing and not nearly as portable.

 

[Lazzi]

I dont belive that any of those are happening. There is absolutly nothing looking going into a book store and findly an old leather bond copy of a story you heard about when you were younger.

Im fully aware that this sounds really sappy, but books just have so much more character than readign soem thing off of a screen. To be able to feel the pages under your finger, that smell that coem forth when you old a book with yellowing pages.

that and you can still read a book in a power out (I live in miami and thats very important to me, hurricanes knock out power every year).

Im fuly aware that paper media isnt very enviromently friendly, but i think its important to still us them for novels and the sort, magazeines and news paper can go entierly to e tablets for all i care (they are produced in such volumes and have minimula re read value)

 

[wewontdie11]

I make a point of not going near half of the scaremongering, bile filled toilet rags that claim to deliver news in this country because I only find myself getting angry at their attempts to ram gay-asylum-seeker-terrorist-apocalypse stories down my throat. I usually only take a brief glance at the local paper because it tends to tell it like it is, with little to no sensationalism.

I think books will always be there though. I'm not a big novel reader, but text books are indispensable for working and referencing from. I find it incredibly hard to focus on long, complex articles on a computer screen and it's much more comfortable reading from paper.

 

[Anarchemitis]

I hope the future isn't Newspeak.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

I hope the future isn't Newspeak.

That would be double plus not good.

 

[squid5580]

I am a bit confused by the poll. Are we talking the written word in general (books, newspapers, magazines) or just newspapers and magazines? Books I doubt will ever go out of style. There will always be people who enjoy curling up and reading a good book. And the internet is less likely to cater to them. Newspapers and Mags on the other hand are dinosaurs. A monthly magazine for whatever your interest is can't compete with the internet. And neither can a newspaper. If you have a computer and an internet conection you have the headline right at your fingertips the second it happens. Not the next morning. And since most will use the internet for other things too it is cheaper (actually it would work out the same price for me since I pay 40 for internet and the cost of a daily newspaper would work out close to that but I can't surf a newspaper). I don't see how the newspapers and mags are making money these days.

 

[samsprinkle]

I love to read...and it's a real shame that people think that reading is a dying medium...that's not true at all. No movie for instance will ever take me beyond the walls of my fortress deep down into the abyss of emotion and back up simply by stating something...if the printed world is dying...then I want to die with it...

 

[AuntyEthel]

Which is where things like the iPod touch, laptops and DS fall down, they are not books. Staring at a screen is not as relaxing and not nearly as portable.

They also hurt the eyes after a few minutes. And there is no comparison with the feel of turning pages and the smell of paper.

 

[Anarchemitis]

I hope the future isn't Newspeak.

That would be double plus not good.

Doubleplusungood.

 

[Spiner909]

Newspapers need to die. I'm the only one that wants them to die apparently.