Back to the Future for News

About two years ago I cancelled my subscription to the newspaper for several reasons:

1. No one takes the newspaper anymore. It's old-fashioned. Newspapers everywhere are literally (and figuratively) folding. I would need to get with the times and go digital like everyone else under 80. 
2. Because of our busy lives, several issues each week went unread, and some of them did not even make it into the house on the day they were delivered. One ended up jamming our neighbor's snowblower when he tried to clear our driveway after a heavy storm. That was embarrassing. 
3. Our local newspaper stopped sponsoring "Itty Bitty Salt Lake City," a search and find contest in which the paper published 20-24 pictures of small things in a four square block area downtown every September. Participants were given a month to identify the location of each item (cracks in the sidewalk, peeling paint on an old phone booth, panes of leaded glass, etc.) and submit their answers to be entered for some not very glamorous prizes. It was absolutely addicting, a favorite family tradition and pastime. Even though our eyeballs dried out each week searching with such intensity, we all loved it and often met people on the streets looking for the same things we were. It was a game everyone in the family could play. When the "Itty Bitty" clues were not published one fall, I called the newspaper to express my disappointment, but they were unmoved. I made an idle threat that I would most likely cancel my subscription, then six months later, I finally did.

But this week, after reading yet another article about how addicting Facebook is and what a time-suck it is, I analyzed why I spend more time than I would like to admit on Facebook and realized I am hungering and thirsting for news. ANY kind of news: personal, social, political, religious...I crave information!

People read Facebook because they have FOMO (fear of missing out), yet when I read Facebook it often confirms IHAMO (I have already missed out!) As an avid newspaper reader for decades, I felt informed. I didn't just get a snippet of information or a snarky summary of an event -- I got the whole story told as objectively and completely as possible.

My crossword puzzle last night.

So this week, I re-subscribed.

It is the most luxurious feeling in the world to have something delivered to your home seven days a week that only costs about 50 cents a day. I bring it in from the cold in its colorful breadsack bag, and it smells fresh and crisp and inky. When I spread it out on the table just beyond my cereal bowl, I see one square yard of news, then turn the page and see another.

But one of the best things about taking the newspaper again is the New York Times crossword puzzle. Oh, how I have missed it! When I cancelled the paper, I promised myself that I would buy NYT crossword puzzles already bound at Barnes & Noble, but it isn't the same experience. When I am working on that day's puzzle in its original newsprint form, I know that thousands of people around the world are puzzling over the same clues I am. It's simply more satisfying.

So if you have been socially guilted into going digital and reading all of your news on electronic tablets and microscopic phone screens, you might enjoy being a retro renegade like me.