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The world is constantly upgrading to the next level where everything is wireless, easy to access and taking large steps into the age of the Internet. Many wonder where this will leave the print industry: newspapers, books and magazines. The main debate on this matter is whether or not civilization should completely accept digital progress or hold on tight to the printed past.

I’m all for progress. I usually can’t survive one day without Internet, but at the same time, I love the fact that I can actually hold a book in my hands and read it. I like physically turning the pages and seeing all the progress I made the further I get into it. I’m an extreme book-worm, this includes most forms of reading, such as magazines and books.

This being said, I never once went for the digital copy of any of the afore mentioned. I never owned a Kindle or read the latest news on Yahoo. I enjoyed having the physical copy in my hands. I don’t know if ‘my people’ are dwindling, but I know there must be people still out there who like having physical copies better than going full on digital. 

Since I regard health very highly due to my background in the medical world, I looked more closely at how reading on electronic devices can affect our health. According to medicaldaily.com, reading on electronic devices can affect the production of the sleep hormone, melatonin. 

This means if you read on your electronic device before going to bed, it takes longer to fall asleep, experience deep sleep and in the end, you wake up more fatigued. Having deficiencies in sleep can lead to other medical problems such as cardiovascular disease, metabolic diseases and cancer. In contrast, reading a physical copy can actually help you fall asleep faster. 

In addition, there are many other medical problems that can arise from reading a screen.

Besides avoiding medical issues, there are other benefits to reading physical copies over their digital counterparts. There will never be a technical difficulty involved when trying to read a news article or the next chapter in a book. There will be no need to have to charge my magazine so I can read the next issue of “Runner’s World.” Physical copies are just simpler to read, which is the whole point of reading in the first place, to be able to have access to information in a simple way. I feel while technology has its place in the reading world, it still does not compare to the good ol’ fashioned way. 

Having experience in the newspaper industry, I’ve read both articles on physical copies of the newspaper and digital copies on the website. To me, when you are on the Internet, you don’t get the full experience of the article. Reading something when its bright screen is blaring at you makes it difficult to focus, and I usually catch myself rereading paragraphs and sometimes the whole article. 

In the end, I think it’s best to let progress do its thing but to keep around the print industry, not just for nostalgia but because it is a better way.

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