Newspapers have always been an important and influential way throughout the past two centuries for people to get information going on around the world. Lately though, the amount of subscribers and readers of newspapers have been on the decline. This is especially apparent in the teenage and college-age groups of Americans. Our generation has become one that wants instant gratification - we want it now, and we want it fast. Newspapers are not exactly the media source of choice for type of people.
One obvious reason that newspapers have failed to attract a new generation of readers is the rise of the Internet. Since its major distribution in households and society in general in the mid-1990's, the Internet has become a major competitor in the mass media market. The speed of transmission and variety of information available on the Internet are major advantages to choosing it as a media source. Even when normal newspaper readers go looking for things that newspapers do provide (like classifieds, movie times, and entertainment listings) they"re likely to look to it online through sites like eBay, MSN, Yahoo, and Monster, not a newspaper's particular Web site. Newspapers are printed media - unable to be updated instantly and therefore, the information contained in them can become irrelevant and useless within hours. They also usually contain only information useful to the general public; there is no specialization involved in the standard daily paper. Today, people want a varied selection of information to read and watch. The Internet is also a faster and more reliable method of getting information than a traditional newspaper. Instead of going to a newsstand and paying fifty cents for a newspaper, a person can simply go to their computer in their home or office and enjoy the same information at a lower price and with less work. The rise of television as a major media source in the past 40 years is another reason for the decline of the newspaper's popularity.
