Newspapers in the digital age

News are indeed everywhere and elsewhere. From social media to websites, we see news like tons of buckets. But seriously, who ever read newspapers in this digital age anyway aside from boomers?
I roamed around Session Road in Baguio City on one Sunday to see if there was anything interesting to see. Every Baguio residents would know that Sunday is a sardines day in Session Road since people lump together to buy stuff from small businesses. While roaming around, I saw a street vendor beside a famous fastfood chain sitting down while selling cheaper stuff. While everyone bought candies and other snacks from him to save costs from expensive food nearby, what caught my attention was the headlines in the newspapers he sold.
The last time I leafed through a a newspaper was in mid-2010. At the time, the Internet was gatecrashed by Filipinos due to its accessibility. Even our family had connected to a stable one. Reading newspapers at that time brought not only curiosity but also knowledge since this was where I received current information in case my gadgets were confiscated. Such maintenance of newspapers boiled down to my late grandma who once subscribed to it as being more traditional despite the emergence of digital age.
As I grew up, I gained much responsibility of which it led to the declining of my dependency on newspapers. I tend to say that “Newspapers are for boomers and I don’t want to waste my money for those. Seriously, why could someone buy newspapers wherein we could have methods that allow for two-way communication? From emojis to comments, heck even trolls can use such in responding to news sources.
Ending the flashback, I was first reluctant in buying newspapers again. Not only because we are now in the digital age but because I don’t want to waste my P20 buying it given that I rely on a student allowance. After all, I juggled part-time in commissions like write ups and tutorials just for adding my allowances in light of my growing living expenses. Nevertheless, I made the toughest risk in buying such in satisfying my curiosity despite of possible judgments from my peers like what I did.
At first hand on the newspaper, I noticed that it was not as thick as before of which I first hypothesized it as a sort of monthly feature magazine than like a book full of events happened within few days. The Internet in my view, has indeed brought changes to print media like newspapers. After all, in 2017 a magazine for kids went out of production in light of the digital age.
As I lifted a few pages of the newspaper, I still felt the similarities I once encountered before. While reading, I smelt the sweet, almond-like fragrance of newsprint when I was a kid. Despite lack of substances in classified ads due to preferences of digital methods by most companies, some sections still remained like news section, entertainment and lifestyle, opinion and editorial and, if any, sports. Reading such brought me back memories and rest from using technology given my digital fatigue of which I tend to ignore.
I am still amazed how publications maintain such despite the digital age. But as the older generations are slowly dying, I am worried about the situation of newspapers in the future. But as long as feeling boomers like myself exist, newspapers would still thrive as it is. For now, I am still eager to buy newspapers to ease my overreliance on digital media just as how I once used digital methods as a way to shy away from my overreliance on newspapers.