Stream of Conscious

Life is an interesting experience, one never knows what thoughts will be generated, nor what will arise from seemingly unconnected, or at best tangential, events. I am in the process of forming a teen advisory council at the library I work.   Now for the most part I am letting them decide how they want to advertise, promote, and focus their energies towards the library. Today during the discussion about how to reach out to other teens that may be interested in participating it was mentioned writing a press release for the local newspaper.
 
STOP THE PRESSES!!!
 
I apologize. In honesty are we not told, conditioned, informed, that the youth of today are tech centric? Of course facebook, myspace, blogs, and what not were also mentioned. 
 
It is easy to forget that traditional forms of communication still exist alongside our blackberries, rss feeds, and emails. It is easy to forget that newsprint, radio, and television may still play a role.   Is the role a permanent (or at least long term)? Is it diminishing or just narrowing?
 
Will newspapers still be read and printed in 10, 20, or even 5 year’s time? Will television be migrated completely to the web? What about radio? 
 
A little redundancy in our communication forms can be good. Perhaps that will become the role of newsprint in the future, another avenue through which information is shared and stored.  As fun, or as hip as it may be, to predict the end of all traditional methods of information dissemination and storage may be, perhaps it is more realistic to predict how they will be used.