Why Paper is Eternal
Joan Shorenstein Center
on the Press, Politics and Public Policy
Discussion Paper Series
Hamlet’s Blackberry:
Why Paper Is Eternal
By William Powers
“More broadly, there is a sense in the culture, inchoate but unmistakable, that all print media, including magazines and books, are careering toward obsolescence. This is hardly a new idea. Since the advent of the computer in the mid-twentieth century, futurists have been foretelling the death of paper-based communication. So far the obituaries have all been wrong, or at least premature. Time and again, advances in computer technology that were supposed to make hard-copy media obsolete failed to do so. Paper lived on.”