Does coffee taste better when you’re reading a real magazine?
As our world becomes more and more digitalised by the nano-second, I’ve been thinking a lot about the old, slower, more “real” if you like, way of doing things (see: “Coffee Tastes Better” – The Magazine Diaries).
Some of us lead lives that are still relatively untouched by social media and all things digital. The rest of us rely on faster, sleeker, cloud-ier on a daily basis. I became a journalist because I love magazines – a lot. Glossy ones with paper pages you can flick through with your fingers and roll up into your tote bag. Much as I live in a digital world now, I still buy glossy mags because they help me switch off and go well with sofas and sun-loungers.
There’s the obvious visual appeal of big paper pages – I don’t think interiors mags, for example, work well in digital format because apart from anything else home accessories look so much more tempting on a printed page instead of crammed onto the screen of an iPad. Ditto travel mags. A double page magazine spread of a tranquil Greek beach has that “breathing space” effect but it would not do it for me looking at the same image on a tablet. (Am I stating the obvious here? Probably!)
Anyway I just had a really thorough eye test at Specsavers (ten times better than the one I used to get done at my local high street chemist) and I’m convinced that so much digital reading won’t be doing my eyesight any good either, in the long run.
photo credit: Apex/Alamy – from The Guardian (17 Aug 2014)
GRAZIA reports 151,000 print sales- but only 4,000 digital subscribers
So it was heartening to read this (below) in The Guardian a few days ago spotlighting the print mags that are still holding strong. Cosmpolitan, Ideal Home, Vanity Fair, Tatler and more are just some of the titles doing OK, thank you very much!
“Still some gloss left on magazine ABCs” – GUARDIAN
Do you read “real mags” or do you download a digital copy?
Do you think glossies will stay strong and even make a comeback (Easy Living was one of the titles that went digital-only earlier this year and Company just announced they’re doing the same thing) or is it – much as some of us want to stop the predicted slide – downhill all the way?