Video Killed the Radio Star. But we never had print stars anyway...

I just realized that we won't have print media anymore.

Magazines are folding and the entire newspaper industry is facing a wrecking ball but I always figured that once the selection was winnowed down, a choice few would emerge from the fray glorious and golden, that the magazines that really provided quality content would always be here because we wanted them and that if not the sudoku books, then the ones that really mattered would always sit on a shelf. But now I'm not so sure.

In the article "The New Journalism," New York magazine spoke with Nick Bilton, a web developer for the New York Times who spends his days tinkering in a lab for new ways for us to experience written word: "'I like the way paper feels,' he scoffs. 'To the next generation, that doesn't mean anything.'"

Oh no, he knows what I'm thinking and he doesn't care! It's obvious to me now that once the iPhone 10.0 and Kindle mate and have a baby I'll still be reading the New York Times -- just not on paper. And that actually matters.

I don't have an iPhone. They're expensive. So is my laptop, you know, that thing you have to replace every few years? Books are cheap and they last a long time and they are yours to keep. Once literature goes online you won't be able to loan your friend a good book -- he'll have to download it for $7.99. And because it's so easy to download illegally, you'll only be able to open the book on five different devices before it's on lockdown. Does this sound familiar?

Because it is harder on our eyes to read from a computer screen, we won't stick to any text for

long. Without paper, how will in-depth pieces on any subject be written and read? I'm afraid that if people no longer want to read more than 300 words our knowledge will suffer.There's a difference between reading facts and reading someone else's perspective. It's true that the internet has made facts more available to us. Books only hold so many pages; they aren't linkable or searchable. But the analysis and synthesis of true understanding requires time which only paper can afford.