The Extinction of Newspapers

How often do you read newspapers? Honestly speaking, not very often for me. Before I came over to Sarawak to further my studies, I still read the newspaper every single day as the daily newspaper is delivered to my home everyday. I do not have to go through the trouble of going out to purchase the newspaper. However after coming over to Sarawak, I have less accessibility to newspaper so I do not read them as often. Therefore, I moved over to online newspaper for my dose of “what is happening around the country and the world”.

It is undeniable that online newspaper is way more convenient than printed newspaper especially when you own a smartphone and also have the access to the internet, which many people do nowadays. With the advancement of technology, is it possible that the printed newspaper industry might lose it’s significance and status as the main platform for people to get information hence, go extinct? To me, I would say yes but not anytime soon.

According to Future Exploration Network, they predict that newspaper will lose it’s significance in 2017 in the United States of America (USA) which was last year, 2019 in the United Kingdom (UK). As for Malaysia, newspaper will lose it’s significance by 2029. They also predicted that by 2040+, newspaper will lose it’s significance all over the world. Looking at these data, it is obvious that the newspaper industry might lose it’s business.

Many have said that with technology, we are able to reduce on the usage of paper especially in the newspaper industry. This somehow “advocates” more of the newspaper readers to turn to online newspaper which will then reduced the sales of printed newspaper. With the sales reduced, newspaper printing companies might have trouble in sustaining their company not only due to the fact that printed newspaper are no longer significant but also because of the lack of income hence, cease the production of printed newspapers.

Although not everyone will move to online newspaper but when companies stop producing them, readers eventually need to move to online newspaper. When this does happen, that is when newspaper are truly extinct. If not then newspapers might be sold at a higher price as compared to now. However, I think that newspaper might not go extinct easily because there is still a generation- those who are 50 and above, that still relies on newspaper as they do no have access to the internet or the smartphone. In order for newspapers to be truly extinct, then this generation needs to be wiped out completely for newspapers to be extinct.