[News] When will printed media become obsolete?

This was a huge topic at the Writer's Conference I attended this past week, for obvious reasons.

While most people, including myself, were reluctant to accept the idea that printed media will be considered 'outdated' at some point in the future, it was also a bit refreshing to hear from editors of major publishing houses say that it was the future, so it should be embraced. Not necessarily rushed, but embraced.

Something that stuck with me was when one of the speakers pointed out that if he were to go to the New York Times website, he'd read one or two articles... but if he had the paper itself in his hands, he'd be more likely to flip through the entire thing, reading 80% of it along the way. Similarly, I'll flip through an entire newspaper, but unless an interesting news piece pops up on my homepage when I first get online, I rarely search for anything.

All in all, I'm in no rush to lose the feeling of a paperback book in my hands, and while I dont think it will ever be completely obsolete in my lifetime, I'm also not gonna stop reading if the only option is a computer screen. Unfortunately, its not as easy to curl up under the covers with a laptop as it is with a book. I'm almost positive a Kindle will sit on my bookshelf at some point in the future, but I doubt I'll stop buying books as a result. Books dont need to be loaded, dont require batteries or a charger, and certainly dont have the potential for hardware/software issues.

Jam it back in, in the dark.