Mark Glaser at PBS’ generally-excellent media blog Mediashift breaks down the two major camps in the debate over the print-to-digital transition. He makes the distinction of older readers who still prefer the tactile appeal of print (among other factors) and younger readers who prefer the networked, get-it-anywhere-for-free qualities of Internet content. He’s not wrong about the shift — it’s certainly happening — but I still can’t shake the feeling that print is going through what economists euphemistically call a “correction”, not a slow death.

He makes a point made often in these discussions about youth’s content-consuming habits:

…the younger set finds what they want through social networks and be-friending their favorite bands on MySpace. The digital natives don’t mind getting information they want online or on their mobile phones. It’s natural and effortless. The print habit was not ingrained into them from birth, because digital media has been around for more than 10 years, and has always been an option right alongside print from the moment they could read.

Bearing in mind that Myspace is virtually irrelevant at this point, most of his points are not inaccurate, but these sorts of argument are missing something important: using kids and teenagers as an informal test group for these observations is incredibly problematic. Most kids and teens don’t like to read (I know, I know, you liked to read as a kid — it happens, but it’s not the norm). I read (print and web) voraciously as an adult but as a teen I was glued to videogames and the computer (and even the web in its first couple of years.) True — I was socialized in a time when print was king, and am clearly a couple generations detached from these teens — but I continue to think that the reading habits of people in their early to late twenties is far more representative test group to surmise where things are going for media, as people currently in their 20’s came of age with the Internet yet are old enough to draw observation on shifting media consumption patterns from.

And you know what? From my observation, the people who actually do read recreationally or regularly — still a minority among adults — read print, alongside online sources, and find separate merits for both. Sure, newspaper readership is down — and will continue to, as the format is ephemeral and most of what it does can be done better online. But there’s still a place in this world for books and well-produced magazine, and there will be for quite some time — it’s just a far more competitive environment.

As a postscript: There’s one rhetorical point Glaser makes that really gets me for similar reasons:

What’s in a newspaper that’s of interest to them? Why do they have to fill their heads with negative news about war and suffering?

A disingenuous argument at best. Media types have been lamenting the lack of public engagement in hard news for decades, and decrying that — oh noes! — the younger generation finds nothing in value in the hard news. Hard news is a niche market with niche appeal, and kids in general don’t care, except for the small handful of Food Not Bombs types and the like. As people get older, the news becomes more relevant to their lives and the lives of the people around them (their families, etc), and people grow into being news consumers. TV sitcoms didn’t kill the hard news market, neither did MTV or USA Today. I think it will withstand the continually waning assault of Myspace.