europeforvisitors - 5:18 pm on Nov 26, 2004 (gmt 0)

Newspapers are more portable than a computer (even a laptop), and they're a lot easier to read at the breakfast table--especially if you're sharing the table with a kid who might knock over a glass of milk. :-) They're also more convenient if you're sitting on a bus or standing on the subway.

Mind you, I say that as a middle-aged guy who grew up with printed media. My older son, who's a university student, gets practically all of his news online. (For that matter, I get most of my international and national news by checking the headlines in Google News and a few major newspaper sites, relying on my metropolitan paper mostly for local news.)

In the United States, newspapers were in decline long before the Internet came along--partly because of TV (which, though shallow, is free and easily for illiterates to digest) but also because of changing commuter trends. Until the 1950s or 1960s, most American families had one car and people relied more heavily on public transportation--which meant they had time to fill by reading a newspaper (even if only the sports pages).