Where did all the magazines go? I’m not talking about the news stores either, those phantastic places where you used to be able to go and browse through Sports Illustrated, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Cosmopolitan, The Atlantic, Outside, Bicycling and so many more magazines people actually read.
No, though the newsstand is a goner, I’m talking about waiting rooms. Where did the magazines go in our doctor, dentist, physical therapist, workout facility lounges, chiropractor waiting rooms?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, Covid killed the magazines. All those germs waiting around on the pages planning to annihilate your immune system. That’s over though. It’s been over for years.
So, where are the magazines in our waiting rooms today? Why haven’t they returned?
I’m slightly puzzled by this. On one hand, once something changes, people and systems often don’t readjust to a new reality. In this case, the decision was made to eliminate magazines due to health safety reasons. Though that threat is currently minimal at best, since the new system is in place, no one clamors to change it.
The other reason we haven’t reverted to spending time perusing mags while we wait to get worked on is because we’ve changed. It’s probably slightly more accurate to say: the reading habits of the citizens of the United States (and world) have decreased to the point that almost nobody purchases and reads magazines. This is the more valid argument.
The smartphone has supplanted many things in our lives. In particular, books that you could open and page through and magazines where you could flip through pages have suffered if not downright disappeared in favor of online venues. They are published less often than 15 years ago, if not downright disappeared.
This came home to me in the past 6-7 years or so. I’d subscribed to Sports Illustrated (SI) for decades. Then, it didn’t seem to be coming as frequently. I had to go online to figure out what happened (in all fairness, I probably overlooked any snail mail they sent telling me they were reducing the number of weekly editions they published).
This didn’t just happen once. Over a period of 3-4 years, SI again reduced its published number of issues. At some point they went to once a month, then to once every other month. Sadly, because I always liked that they put extra time into their writing to give perspective on sports-related issues, I finally canceled the subscription because I wasn’t getting the magazine often enough to even care about it.
They are an example of the death of magazines (the ones you hold in your hands and page through). There are (at a minimum) hundreds of other examples of magazines that lost readers or found the reading public with a shorter and shorter attention span.
Maybe this is influencing the doctors, dentists and chiropractors of the world. Because they or their employees or their patients don’t read and dump their old issues on the waiting room tables, we’re left with nothing but to pull out our phones and stare blankly into them. Ouch.
Covid killed the waiting room table magazines. But we could have brought them back. The tide has gone out. Will it come back? It doesn’t appear so at this point in history.
No, though the newsstand is a goner, I’m talking about waiting rooms. Where did the magazines go in our doctor, dentist, physical therapist, workout facility lounges, chiropractor waiting rooms?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, Covid killed the magazines. All those germs waiting around on the pages planning to annihilate your immune system. That’s over though. It’s been over for years.
So, where are the magazines in our waiting rooms today? Why haven’t they returned?
I’m slightly puzzled by this. On one hand, once something changes, people and systems often don’t readjust to a new reality. In this case, the decision was made to eliminate magazines due to health safety reasons. Though that threat is currently minimal at best, since the new system is in place, no one clamors to change it.
The other reason we haven’t reverted to spending time perusing mags while we wait to get worked on is because we’ve changed. It’s probably slightly more accurate to say: the reading habits of the citizens of the United States (and world) have decreased to the point that almost nobody purchases and reads magazines. This is the more valid argument.
The smartphone has supplanted many things in our lives. In particular, books that you could open and page through and magazines where you could flip through pages have suffered if not downright disappeared in favor of online venues. They are published less often than 15 years ago, if not downright disappeared.
This came home to me in the past 6-7 years or so. I’d subscribed to Sports Illustrated (SI) for decades. Then, it didn’t seem to be coming as frequently. I had to go online to figure out what happened (in all fairness, I probably overlooked any snail mail they sent telling me they were reducing the number of weekly editions they published).
This didn’t just happen once. Over a period of 3-4 years, SI again reduced its published number of issues. At some point they went to once a month, then to once every other month. Sadly, because I always liked that they put extra time into their writing to give perspective on sports-related issues, I finally canceled the subscription because I wasn’t getting the magazine often enough to even care about it.
They are an example of the death of magazines (the ones you hold in your hands and page through). There are (at a minimum) hundreds of other examples of magazines that lost readers or found the reading public with a shorter and shorter attention span.
Maybe this is influencing the doctors, dentists and chiropractors of the world. Because they or their employees or their patients don’t read and dump their old issues on the waiting room tables, we’re left with nothing but to pull out our phones and stare blankly into them. Ouch.
Covid killed the waiting room table magazines. But we could have brought them back. The tide has gone out. Will it come back? It doesn’t appear so at this point in history.