Digital news – the downside
February 13, 2010 by Gunnar
All through 2010 I have avoided printed news alltogether in favour of online news, as part of one of my more experimental new year’s resolutions. I wanted to see benefits and challenges of living a digital yet normal life, and as part of this I’ve shunned printed newspapers, magazines and the likes in favour of targeted news feeds delivered to my eBook reader (for reading while having breakfast and on public transport), to my smartphone and on my laptop.
The Good
The upside is nothing short of fantastic – I’ve set up my newsfeeds from a mix of local, national, international and technical news feeds so that I get only the news that are relevant to me. Thanks to some clever filters, I’ve completely purged celebrity gossip, sports and trivia from my news. Instead I’ve been introduced to interesting in-depth articles from Time Magazine, commentary from Dagsavisen and drooled over new gadgets from Engadget, none of which I would have found had I stayed with only Aftenposten.
The Bad
Until Friday night, I was in online media nirvana. However, half an hour of watching the Skavlan talkshow on NRK changed that ever so slightly. As mentioned before I’m no sports buff, and have thus nuked everything sports related from my news. So while I knew the Olympics were due some time this winter, I didn’t know they started last night until it was brought up on Skavlan.. There I also learned who won the Norwegian Eurovision Song contest a week ago and heard the song for the first time… Clearly, my closest colleagues and friends must share my likes and dislikes, as these things haven’t come up during lunch or small talk. So much for going from a large company with large cantina to a small start-up..
The Verdict
I’ve kept my paper subscription to Aftenposten during my experiment, and starting today I’ve re-included it in my morning breakfast-and-tea-routine. No matter how good e-Ink gets, it can never replace the feeling of enjoying a real newspaper in front of the fireplace. And more importantly, even though I still have no interest of Eurovision Song Contest or the Olympics, I’m still missing out not knowing anything about them…
As always, the best way forward seems to be the middle path.
