Spending time getting lost in the story of a good novel is never time wasted. I also learn while reading non-fiction books about nature, people, walking and places. Reading punctuates my day and is my comfortable time. In between these reading episodes I read newspapers [yes, we still buy a paper at least once a week] and magazines and on my phone or the laptop I read blogs, newsletters and substacks that interest me.
I also write. Occasionally I write on this blog and I write a reducing number of magazine articles. The latter are illustrated with photographs I take and spend time editing. While there doesn’t seem any evidence that books will disappear, some are suggesting that written newsletters and blogs will soon be history.
I was reading James Marriott’s substack article recently. In this he refers to an article by Derek Thompson from October 2025, where he asserts that everything is now television. The suggestion is that many would rather watch a YouTube video than read an article. We may all recognise how Social Media has lost its social side of keeping up with friends and seeing their photographs and is now dominated by people watching videos from people they don’t know. Apparently, even podcasts have become visual entertainment these days and audio-only podcasts are becoming obsolete. And now there are infinite numbers of AI generated videos to watch!
When Derek Thompson writes that everything is now television, he explains:
When I say “everything is turning into television,” what I mean is that disparate forms of media and entertainment are converging on one thing: the continuous flow of episodic video.
He is concerned that we have lost our ability to be on our own, read a paragraph and think about what it means.
I love watching television and listening to the radio but I find I don’t have the patience to sit through non-professional videos, even on subjects I am interested in. I find even short videos move too slowly , have too much repetition and too many words that aren’t really needed. I could read the content of a 10-minute video in a much shorter time and not be distracted with moving images of the speaker and the background. But it seems I am out-of-step with the rest of the country.
And don’t get me started on the joy of looking in detail at a well-composed photograph!
Search on the internet and there are plenty of articles and podcasts discussing whether we are seeing the end of written journalism. But we aren’t there yet. I receive a lot of written blogs and substacks every week. I read these ideas and thoughts at my own pace and find inspiration and curiosity in the words of others. I hope written pieces like this will continue as long as I am on this planet.
According to WordPress this is a three-minute read. If you have read this far, thank you and well done!
Back on the road again 