The Day I Stopped Reading Newspapers

Today, April 30th, 2014 is the day I will officially mark as the day I stopped reading newspapers. It’s kind of a big deal for me, since I used to love spreading a broadsheet on a table with a coffee in hand and some nice jazz music playing softly in the background. But today is the day I found out I no longer wanted that.

You see, I did realize in the past few years that I was reading less and less newspapers and more and more online news or Kindle dailies. But I always assumed that it was out of pragmatic necessity or because I didn’t have access to an actual paper. But it turns out the transformation was more permanent.

Today, I was having breakfast at the hotel, and I saw them: A set of fresh, untouched, free newspapers silently pleading to me to pick them up and read while I’m having my morning coffee. These were not some second tier cheap newspapers. No, they were Lebanon’s top dailies: Annahar, the Daily Star..etc. This was a sight (and smell) that the old me would have drooled over, but today I felt nothing.

I had all the time in the world. I wasn’t in a rush. I was comfortably seated and had a large table in front of me. An ideal setup for reading a paper. I hesitated for a moment, then I looked at my iPhone, and it hit me: It’s officially the end of an era. I no longer want to read any news printed on paper…