{"id":262,"date":"2010-02-10T21:44:08","date_gmt":"2010-02-11T02:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/?p=262"},"modified":"2011-10-15T23:33:18","modified_gmt":"2011-10-16T03:33:18","slug":"where-have-all-the-flowers-gone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/?p=262","title":{"rendered":"Where Have all the Flowers Gone?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Magazines report another drop in readership.\u00a0 Take a closer look at the reports.\u00a0 The drop referred to is in newsstand sales<\/em><\/strong> which are far more profitable to publishers than the typically heavily discounted subscription sales.\u00a0\u00a0 Surprised? You shouldn\u2019t be.\u00a0 The impulse to buy a newspaper or magazine for a flight or train ride has been greatly diminished.<\/p>\n

Next time you are on a bus, subway, or train note the lack of people reading anything not on a screen<\/em>.\u00a0 Most are not reading at all.\u00a0 Now they are listening, viewing, or playing.\u00a0 Remember in the olden days of the late 20th Century, that there was no radio reception in the subways, no Blackberrys and so on.\u00a0 The “default” alternative was to read a tabloid newspaper or magazine – then came boom boxes, CD players, and eventually those morphed into iPods, which became acceptable to an adult generation. Music was no longer a teenage delight.\u00a0 Free television on Jet Blue further diminishes the need for their customers to pick up reading material for company on either a short or long flight.\u00a0 Commuter bus lines\u00a0routinely have screens for free TV programming and\/or movies.<\/p>\n

Video games for adults have also supplanted reading.\u00a0 Cell phone use on buses and trains further compete with the former sole choice of newspapers and magazines for diversion on either local or longer rides.\u00a0 People whose jobs did not include reading or looking at screens decades ago now see screens all day long, so while commuting, would rather talk on cell phones, text or play games.\u00a0 And oh yeah…laptops<\/em><\/strong> have permitted and\/or forced<\/em> commuters and travelers to work while they ride rather than relax. Relaxing without a screen is an outdated notion.\u00a0 (Also note how relatively few people simply snooze on mass transit – note the popularity of “sleep deprivation” as a talk show topic.)<\/p>\n

This society once nourished by the press and writings of all descriptions and kinds becomes another victim of our self-absorbed citizenry.\u00a0 “Don’t worry cuz things won’t get no better even if you try”.<\/p>\n

With the advent of cheaper screens, using much less power, like OLEDs (Organic Light Emitting Diodes), we think that soon, we\u2019ll be seeing screens everywhere and on places you never imagined. A cab ride in NY used to be about watching the movable feast of people on the street, watching them from your comfortable seat. Today, you get an intrusive TV screen in the back seat, so you can watch the latest headlines. Stare at it and you may as well be anywhere, Des Moines, Cleveland, Albuquerque. All fine cities, but not Gotham. If you were in those cities, wouldn\u2019t you rather see<\/em> the city you\u2019re in, itself, rather than a screen of the city you\u2019re in?<\/p>\n

Final note, and we know we risk the wrath of every parent in America.\u00a0 Kids used to read, look out the window, talk, yell, play games and get into trouble when riding in the back seats of cars. Now, flat screens in car headrests, DVD players etc. are virtually standard equipment.\u00a0 They serve to keep the kids shall we say, “quiet”.\u00a0 Surely the sanity of the driver is paramount but this introduction of a few million more screens further diminishes the market for magazines and even dare we say it,\u00a0books for children.<\/p>\n

Will magazines morph into screens and become an electronic imitation of their paper versions? They may have to if they are to survive. Mores the pity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Magazines report another drop in readership.\u00a0 Take a closer look at the reports.\u00a0 The drop referred to is in newsstand sales which are far more profitable to publishers than the typically heavily discounted subscription sales.\u00a0\u00a0 Surprised? You shouldn\u2019t be.\u00a0 The impulse to buy a newspaper or magazine for a flight or train ride has been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-copyright-info"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=262"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":601,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions\/601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}