If you look far enough back in history, it seems that humans have always needed to express themselves in some tactile form. Paleolithic caves bear cryptic drawings and symbols. Ancient clay tablets were laboriously filled by special classes of elite scribes who could read and write. Medieval monks toiled for back-breaking hours to write sacred texts by hand. As much as we know that the printing press changed the course of the written word, the advent of the internet seems to have affected printed media. The comparative ease of bouncing from website to website over walking down library hallways and skimming books is absolutely undeniable. From the earliest days of internet availability, we have heard predictions that print media is on its way out. Some proclaim it is already dead. To really understand whether or not the internet will take out print for good, it is important to know the factors at play.

Cost

Asking whether or not print media will eventually be ousted by the internet may seem like a largely philosophical question. After all, it is almost impossible to imagine print fading altogether. Don’t forget there are still people riding in horse carriages, in spite of the dominance of automobiles. The key issue at work in whether print media will become irrelevant (even if it does not disappear) is cost. Just putting out one monthly magazine or newspaper can easily set publishers back tens of thousands of dollars. That is just for a publication that comes out once a month. If you wanted to add color to the mix, the costs will be even higher—for hi-res photos, vivid colors, and paper good enough that the colors show up well, you can expect the numbers to swiftly rise. Compare that to the virtually minimal cost of putting up several posts a day online, and the real picture comes into focus.

Changing Terrain

The main source of funding for printed media and commercial websites comes through advertising. As the internet has become a more dominate source for consumer loyalty and traffic, the expectations of advertisers have changed. Although it is relatively easy to provide analytics to demonstrate popularity and user growth online, it is difficult to poll all of the readers of a print publication to see how they are interacting with ads. If you consider other types of print media, such as textbooks, you see a similar trend. Teachers and students can interact with online documents in a way that printed material does not allow. There is no way to pull up footage from important historical events from a book. These trends have bolstered the argument for those who imagine a world without print media.

Pros and Cons for the Future

Although it seems that the deck is stacked against print media, human nature may be its ultimate salvation. The same instincts that made people draw on cave walls perhaps instills in us a need for messages and pictures that have some permanence. You may have most of your family pictures on your computer, but you probably still have printed ones on your walls, too. And for every person who thinks the tablet is the future for information sharing, there is a person who likes the way a book feels in their hands. You cannot smell or feel an iPad in the same way that you can experience a cherished childhood book. Advertisers know this, too. A full-page ad in a popular magazine will still be there six months from now, unlike that banner on a trendy blog. Although the internet offers convenience, ease, and speed, it doesn’t fulfill us in the same way that our age-old habits of writing and reading do. It’s unlikely that it will altogether kill print media, so expect the future to hold some form of co-habitation, however imbalanced.