My husband and I can't bring ourselves to cancel the two daily newspapers we've subscribed to our entire married life, but I wonder if we're just delaying the inevitable. As our reading habits continue to evolve, I suspect the day will come when we suck it up and kick the printed newspaper habit out the door.
It startles me to even think this way, but let's be honest. Who has time to linger over the daily paper anymore? With our rushed morning schedules, we barely manage to pick it up from the driveway and toss it in the house. This is not to say that we are news non-consumers. Nothing could be further from the truth. We just consume differently these days.
While getting dressed, we get the headlines (and much valued weather forecast) from "Good Morning America." I can leave for work not only dressed appropriately, but with full confidence that the world has not ended and celebrities are still misbehaving.
Stuck in traffic on the way to work, I check my Twitter feed and scour the posts on Facebook. I might have a minute to look at a few photos on Instagram.
My radio dial is tuned to either "Howard Stern" or NPR, depending on the subject matter (both informative sources in my world, although not necessarily yours).
At work I receive CNN alerts throughout the day with significant breaking news. If time permits, I may go to the New York Times app on my iPad and do a quick scan of the opinion pages. Over lunch, I try to read a few posts from bloggers whom I enjoy following.
Chances are someone will email me a link to a news item of interest. If I have time, I'll read it then and there; if not, I'll bookmark it for later.
By the time we get home and grab some dinner, it's likely that the forlorn daily paper will join its unread companions stacked in a corner of our bedroom. It's hard to let an old habit go. We tell ourselves that we'll get to them eventually.
Except that there is a Google+ hangout I want to attend. And that novel on my bed stand is waiting to be finished. When my eyes are too bleary to focus on the screen or the page, there's always CNN News or "The Daily Show" before calling it a night.
However, nothing can take the place of our leisurely Sunday morning ritual: newspapers served with bagels and a bottomless pot of coffee.
I don't see that changing anytime soon.