The Return of Print? Perhaps

I’m a print guy.

Oh, I love the Internet, have a blog, enjoy Facebook, know how to tweet and read the New York Times on my smartphone. But I still love books, real books. And I still love print newspapers and read two a day and the Times in print every Sunday.

So I was thrilled to see a terrific column by Colin W. Sargent, editor and publisher of Portland Magazine this month extolling the many virtues of print.

I subscribe to Portland Magazine and eagerly await its arrival every month. I fell in love with Maine two years ago during a birthday trip to the state and especially enjoyed spending time in Portland, a great, walkable little city with amazing restaurants, a vibrant art scene, live music, festivals and a picturesque waterfront.

This month, Sargent wrote about the many benefits of print, citing research done by cognitive literature scholar Susanne Reichl of the University of Vienna who says when we read we actually lose ourselves while reading books, magazines and print newspapers. Good writing transports us and in a world full of noise, our minds can use the escape.

Sargent writes that when he reads he gets swept up in the stories and descriptions and that he becomes more “fully human” and that’s why we will always have a need for print material because the digital experience is just not quite the same thing.

“Pop-ups, streaming, email alerts and other interruptions can’t help but prevent us from reaching deepest into the reading experience,” he writes. “The internet may be irreplaceable, but so is real reading with a real book or magazine.”

Naomi Baron who has studied the difference between online reading and reading print materials says her research clearly shows that readers pay more attention and retain more information when reading print.

Students multi-task three times as much when reading online than when they read hard copy and therefore don’t connect emotionally to digital material, she says.

Sargent’s prediction: a print comeback is coming soon to give us relief from the cacophony of the internet.

His advice: “buy all the print newspapers you can right now, because they are on the eve of a renaissance.”

Well, we did. (shamless plug: Delray Newspaper, Boca Newspaper) So I sure hope he’s right.

No less a sage than Warren Buffett is also bullish on local newspapers and magazines. He doesn’t believe in regional papers, but small papers that serve their markets well have some life left in them, says the Oracle of Omaha.

So maybe our desire to connect emotionally with the written word; our need to concentrate and move away from the screen (for just a little while) and our need to avoid pop-ups, texts and email notifications will give newspapers, books (I wrote one of those too) and magazines (go Atlantic Ave) a bright future.

I sure hope so.