What’s black and white and read all over? Not a newspaper! Not many people read the paper anymore, but if you are one of the few still out there, congratulations. You are part of the exclusive club that still reads print media.

To be honest, I’ll be lucky if 50 people take the time to read this column, and I’ll be even luckier if half of those views aren’t my mother refreshing The Crimson White’s webpage – emphasis on webpage.

To be honest, probably no one who is reading this column walked to a kiosk on campus and picked up a paper. Most likely, people will be reading this opinion on their computers or cell phones.

Print media is dying. According to the Pew Research Center, newspaper circulation numbers have been on steady decline since the 80s, and this decline has accelerated as of late. The reason for this loss of readership may be that many people need to be more stimulated by other forms of media.

God created light. God created man. Man invented fire. Man built the pyramids. Fast-forward a few hundred years, and man went to college and could barely stay awake for a 50 minute lecture.

Thousands of years of civilized society have culminated to 18-year-olds blacking out in the Boom Boom Room and swiping through a feed of friends’ pictures. Is this what evolution has led us to?

With each new generation, attention spans seem to have shrunk exponentially. People can barely wait five minutes without checking their phones in a crowded room anymore.

Anytime there is some sort of lull in a conversation, people in our generation hop right on our phones to check our notifications. The thing is, we aren’t checking anything important. Best-case scenario, we might be looking at our best friend’s Snapchat story of a Frutta Bowl, or God forbid, another picture of a Turbo Coffee. But you can bet it’s still better than Facetime with your relatives over the holiday season.

Without technological distractions, reading the black and white on a commute was infinitely more stimulating than sitting in silence as the world passed by. Nowadays, there are distractions to be found everywhere. We have phones, video advertising, music on demand – you name it. One could easily go through the day constantly stimulated by technology.

This holiday season, take some time to fight these distractions. If you don’t read the newspaper, take the time to have a quality conversation with the people around you. Unplug, disconnect and relax for a few days while you don’t have “wyd” texts blowing up your phone at 2 a.m.