What Do You Read For Leisure These Days?

 In an age of information overload, increased screen time and competing media seeking your attention,

what do we read for leisure these days?

Or do we even  think of going for the written word as an option.....

We get visual clips, often brief ones, shared with us from the social media network.

Photographs can truly be better than a thousand words in conveying so many things.

We have access to virtual and true computers in varying sizes in the course of a day's routine - the smart TV, tablets, mobile devices and desktops.

I baulk at times at having to read long passages of messages, as if I really do not have the time to saviour them, even if some of them can still be inspiring, humorous or useful to know.

Then there are those long PDFs in small font, not user friendly when we read them on the mobile smart phone when on the go between appointments in public places.

Moments When Our Fingers felt the Paper

Long ago, many individuals thought first of grabbing the newspaper after waking up - and like having a Linus blanket from the Peanuts cartoon strip, these same persons would be holding the print in their arms.

These mornings, it is a better bet they are seen either holding their hot beverage or mobile device, rather than any newspaper.  Or their sports gear!

Not slowly, but surely, the printed medium has significantly dropped its utilisation of wood plantations, naturally growing trees and Nature's growth product.

Where societies and consumers may be using less paper, we are increasingly dependent on more electricity and better performing Wi-Fi, not just to read, but to run our gadgets, critical systems and life routines.  If there is a water or natural gas supply cut, we can still react better than when electricity and Wi-Fi supply problems arise for households, commercial outlets and community grids.

When things do work, we still may have exchanged convenience for higher vulnerabilities and risks.  We pollute the environment when we continue to practice the throw away mindset  - this time it is not recyclable paper but more challenging chemicals, toxic metals and unrecyclable materials.

Choices Have Narrowed, The Pleasures Have Been Diluted

The number of periodical publications in Australia has significantly dropped over the past 30 years.  Local magazines are mainly been confined to lifestyle, speculative and low level content.  Just walk into any newsagent and it is so evident.  The revenue contribution from publications to such newsagents has gone down so much they have wisely taken up being outlets for banks, Australia Post and other ventures.

Even from overseas, the extent of publications that used to criss-cross the world every day on air and sea transport have come to a sorry state.   Yes, they now are transmitted in cyberspace.  Changing parameters in the viability of the news publishing trade, kicked off by falling advertising revenues over several years, have come in addition to the challenges from media platforms that can reach actual and potential customers simultaneously in the blink of the eye.  Not only are traditional publishers feeling serious transformation of their business, but the number of mega owners behind so many mastheads across the Globe have become the privileged few.

Seemingly eternal publications like TIME, the Australian, The UK Times, the South China Morning Post, Newsweek, the Washington Post, the Straits Times and the Wall Street Journal are still operating, but most of them under different owners.  Not many remember other titles like the Asia Magazine, The Bulletin Australia, the Australian Business Review, LIFE and People as they are no longer publishing.

Do reflect on when we came across more independent reporting, boldly proclaiming information and data that most mainstream newspapers avoid?  These days such boldness become so rare in view of rising financial costs, litigation and less liberal political tolerance.   When they do arise these days, they are small outfits, always online and so like the guerrilla on the fringe.  Many publications, whether toeing the line of the powers that be or not, ask for donations from online readers  - hence this has led to the subscription payments required if you want to read more than just the headlines.

One of the key features of an Enlightened and more tolerant world is the freedom of expression across the country in newspapers churned out in small towns and various regions across a country.   What do we get these days?   The merger of television news channels news with online publications and print mastheads under the same eventual owner has instead led to the uniformisation and greater editorial control of news content.   The concept of supplying news around the clock - instead of at a set time every evening when everyone gathered around the living room - has diluted the enjoyment of jointly sharing the experience of finding out significant news developments.  And mind you, who gathers much in groups these days, as we are encouraged to go into more personalisation routines, even before Covid?  It can be so disheartening to watch newsreaders read out the same lines of news repeatedly on media.

Increasing Regular Use of our Eye Power

Most of us utilise more of our ears and eyes, less of our muscles, sense of smell and agility in our contemporary lifestyle.   The urbane will not even go out to get their meals, they have it delivered to them.  Think of your own personal lifestyle - your eyesight is vital.  Gaming, communicating, doing business, etc.

Perhaps stimulating our eyes to a more diverse and stimulating set of profiles each day becomes important.   Switch from bright white light screens to calming greens and blues of the outdoors.  Our eyes are more significant now for identification purposes in public places,  Still, the written word can be the most common use for our eyes - texting messages, clicking an option or when stimulating our minds for further thoughts.

So perhaps my question at the very beginning of this write up - what do we read for leisure these days - can be redundant.   We are increasingly reading all the time, so when we do not have to, we better do other things.