online newspaper: the future newspaper?

As a mass communication transform itself everyday with innovation, it would not be possible that the development of the online newspaper will replace the printed newspaper. The reading-manipulation techniques such as scrolling and using hyperlinks on finding information at different locations was necessary took extra time and probably extra cognitive resources that will lead into a lower recognition performance.

Online newspaper has the advantages of being interactive and has the ability of rapid access to a large number of information. More over, it offers up-to-date information and it normally provided free of charge.

However, the disadvantages of online newspaper, it do not convey the experience of reading a newspaper, reading in the monitor of computer is tiring and there are instances that it cannot be read while traveling.

In my personal experience, I can say that it is still practical to read printed newspaper rather than reading online newspaper. I used to read the printed newspaper, Philippine daily Inquirer because I find it more convenient rather than checking the news in its online newspaper (www.inquirer.net). The news in printed newspaper are well organized and I can easily spot the important news of the day. It is easy to turn the pages of the newspaper and locate of what part of the newspaper I am interested to read. The printed newspaper can use for future reference I can easily read the past issue by simply reading the old newspaper.

On the other hand, in the online newspaper of the Philippine Daily Inquirer the news are clutters. There are too much text in the web page. It is difficult to read news. The news in online newspaper are not permanent, they are changing everyday. If I want to read the news of yesterday I can no longer read them.

The development of online newspaper may destroy the existence of newspaper. We don’t hold the future, we don’t know, one day all we see is controlled by technology. No Books! No Newspaper!