Print is BLANK

As part of having my grad students introduce themselves at the start of the class, I asked them to fill in the blank in the following statement: Print is ______.

The classes are a mix of returning and new grad students, so I was interested in seeing if there were going to be a range of answers. What the students answered were surprising.  Most of them still believe in the primacy of print. It can be "evolving" or "changing" but they don't see it going away. There were a few other students who viewed it as an essential format, but a format nonetheless.

I think my favorite response was that Print is something older people worry about. There's is a lot to unpack in that statement. Why are older people worried about it? Why aren't younger people worried about it?  It doesn't hint at if there should be a worry but identifies a dividing line in different methods of thinking.

Here are the answers from my students:

Print is _______

• Not going away.
• Evolving.
• Changing.
• An art form.
• Another format.
• Beautiful.
• My life.
• Stubborn.
• Something older people worry about.
• Never ever, ever, ever going to die.
• Everlasting.
• Form, not function.
• Preferred.
• In flux.
• Alive and well.
• An amazing medium.
• Addictive.
• Useful.
• Relevant.