Hello! And welcome to my blog. This is Ask Ashley and I will be commenting on the ever changing, ever fascinating world of technology. I will be focusing on technology that enhances our day to day lives and also discussing what is “in” and what is “out” in today’s tech savvy society. At the end of each post I will ask a question of the day, and since this blog is set up for a class I really appreciate all of the feedback Thanks and hope you enjoy!
A poll was given in my Mass Media and Society class last semester on how many students read the newspaper. It may not be surprising that less than half of the class raised their hand that they read it. What may be a little more shocking is the answer to Dr. Rany’s follow-up question: How many of you read the print version? Not a single hand was raised.
I can still remember the old movies and T.V shows where the paper boy would wake up at the crack of dawn to deliver his route to anxiously awaiting families ready to read the day’s headlines. It seems those days are few and far between. Instead of getting deliveries many people opt to read their newspaper online. I am including in this statistic.
I would love to say that I start out each morning reading the paper while eating cereal but in today’s fast paced lifestyle, I find myself with little time to enjoy the paper. Instead I resort to NYTimes.com or other online news sites to get my daily dose of news. Sometimes I don’t even check the online paper from my computer. With technology today, it is more convenient and easier to check the news from my phone. If you have a Smartphone it is almost easier to read the news on your way to work or when you have down time without even opening up the laptop. Judging from the drastic decline in news print sales I’m guess I’m not the only one who finds getting their news online fits Americans’ lifestyle today.
In the Pew Research Center's 2008 news media consumption survey, 39% of people that were polled said they read a newspaper yesterday -- either print or online -- down from 43% in 2006. The proportion reporting that they read just the print version of a newspaper fell by roughly a quarter, from 34% to 25% over the two-year period. And 14% of Americans said they read a newspaper online yesterday, up from 9% in 2006. So it is clear that Americans are reading the newspaper less and if they read it at all more prefer to read online.
Since the purpose of writing this blog is to talk about the different ways in which technology enhances our day to day lives I’d like to see for myself if all of this research is true for my own age group: the college aged group. The question of the day today is this: Does access to newspapers online increase your chance of reading it? If so how?
I would hope that however we choose to read the paper, whether it is online or not, the point is that we are reading it. So I say YAY for technology as long as it proves beneficial.
Ask Ashley
Access to online newspapers definitely increases the chances that college-age people will gain understanding of timely issues. Today's college students seem to do everything online, from submitting term papers to instant messaging friends. Thus, it is unreasonable for the media to expect us to make an exception for news (i.e., to consume print news while continuing to do everything else electronically). As long as the quality of journalism does not decline as news becomes electronic (which is certainly a debatable question), I say that it is a good thing that news is readily available for consumption by college-age people.
ReplyDeleteOnline access to the newspaper is very important to me. I scan for headlines at my internship every morning. I probably spend between 2 and 4 hours a day just reading headlines and searching news sites for the latest on things like fraud, crime, law and litigation in Florida. I think online news articles are great because they allow people to share them on social media sites and through e-mail.
ReplyDeleteRebecca Morse
http://morse-online.com/rlm