Carrie Bradshaw once said how she used to skip out on her necessities to buy a copy of Vogue Magazine when she first moved to New York. Obviously with Carrie being a fictional character, her actions aren’t exactly representative of reality. However, how many people actually purchase printed media such as magazines anymore.
As things update and progress, we continue to rely more on electronic outlets and media. According to Statista, the magazine industry draws around 220 million consumers between digital and print. News Media Alliance reported that 9 in 10 people interact with some version of magazine media.
Due to COVID, the cost to print ink and paper went up. Inversely, Ink World noted that the numbers for physical copies dropped from about 48,597,000 down to around 28,554,137 copies. And since 2020, Alkami reports how there were 56% less subscriptions in 2023 than in 2019.
So, are magazines going out of style?
Printed media such as magazines are such an important part of modern culture in general. It takes a mix of communication from the past and reports on all things pop culture. There is a magazine for every genre.
As our modern technology continues to increase, online media and information has become very accessible. Classic media outlets like New York Times, TIME Magazine, ELLE Magazine, and Vogue all offer digital subscription services.
This is great for those unable to get a printed subscription. However, it seems that it’s caused us to forget about physical copies.
Each magazine is like a time capsule, emblazoned with things reminiscent from the time of publication. This allows us to easily look back at old “artifacts” and gives us a physical collection of literary pieces.
Printed media literacy also helps avoid politically false information. Obviously there is going to be false information regardless, but typically prints cannot be edited since they have already been put out.
By getting away from physical print, we are almost shutting down a piece of our past. I remember walking in grocery stores and seeing a line up of magazines as I waited for my parents to pay for our groceries. Obviously I still see a line up of magazines; however, the section never seems to catch my eye the same way.
Children now will grow up, possibly without ever flipping through a magazine. Without the magazines, they won’t learn how to consume the news in the same way. Obviously, some magazine topics can stay in the past, such as the harmful gossip and rumors that circulate the pages. As a whole, it seems our critical thinking skills have declined. We don’t even read for fun anymore, instead we doom scroll on a social media platform of our choosing. We use Pinterest to make vision boards rather than circling and cutting out finds in magazines.
The digital world leaves us wondering if printed magazines were just a long-standing fad, as we scroll through a screen instead of flipping the crisp pages in our magazine library.