For a while, my mom would not loosen her grip on reading the newspaper or watching the evening news. She laments how people prefer to read headlines than stories and how subjectivity is replacing objectivity on air.
Then she bought an iPad. As if she hadn’t believed the technology headlines, the ability to read numerous newspapers online and in the palms of her hands fascinated her. She began considering what was once the unthinkable: canceling her newspaper subscription.
I already knew how often her eyes looked upon her iPad. She began replying to my emails within hours instead of the following day. And her responses mostly ended with the preprogrammed “Sent from my iPad.”
She recently reminded me something I told her about working in a TV newsroom. Near my desk, the anchors read on live TV afternoon teases to persuade viewers to tune into the 5pm news. I sometimes laughed at the teases, whispering to co-workers how I could learn the rest of the story immediately by Googling the topic. Some producers surprised me by not realizing people no longer needed to sit on the edges of their seats and wait hours to hear the latest details. The way the public consumed the news had changed and some in the business were, in a sense, still pecking away at typewriters.
I guess my point never fully resonated with my mom until she said how she feels addicted to her iPad. She feels addicted to knowing every minute might bring a new detail to a developing story and today’s technology puts those constantly changing headlines at her fingertips.
The frequent scenes of people in restaurants or just about anywhere always staring down at their tablets or smartphones bring their own troubles. People appear to make less conversation and miss the little things occurring around them. But on The Flip Side, the evolution of journalism is unmistakable, although my mom has not abandoned the evening news. She might not watch ABC, CBS or NBC live anymore. But she never misses it due to her DVR.