Print Is Dead – Long Live Print

We like digital. But we also like print. Which is best? There’s only one way to find out...

Not long ago  I watched my daughter Alice walk into the living room and pick up her mum’s iPad. She opened the cover, pressed the start button, waited for the screen to come to life, then without hesitation scrolled through the pages of apps until she found the one she was looking for. She tapped it, waited for it to load, navigated the menus then started to play the colourful jigsaw puzzle game that filled the screen, sliding pieces into place to form cartoon wildlife pictures, each correct move rewarded with a satisfying animal sound. Alice is just two years old.

The speed and ease with which she has taken to the device is certainly testament to Apple’s intuitive interface, which she has grasped far more quickly than us grown-ups (we probably think too much). But it struck me that she will also miss out on the sense of wonder we experience with this technology. We marvel at a science fiction reality that has miraculously come to life. For her, it is normal. She will grow up expecting to access any and all information this way, at the tap of a button – and even that button will be virtual.

The exponential growth of digital technology is changing us, and our expectations. The new ways in which we access information are also bringing about seismic shifts in certain areas of business. Just last month, one of my students at Anglia Ruskin in Cambridge, where I teach journalism, commented matter-of factly that in a few years there wouldn’t be any books. Considering we currently purchase around 300 million print books a year in the UK, worth around £3,000 million, that’s a pretty devastating prospect. But how true is it? And what does it mean for other printed media – magazines, brochures, flyers, direct mail – when we are increasingly turning to smartphones, hand-held devices and the internet as our default information resource?