My GenZ children are far more likely to get their breaking news from a clever meme re-shared by one of their 1,287 closest friends on Instagram or Twitter than the way I did in the 80s, from the front page of the newspaper.

I honestly can’t recall ever witnessing my own children, or anybody under 25 for that matter, reading a printed newspaper. To be fair, the primary draw to the newspaper for me as a kid was through the Sunday Comics. On the way to reading Dennis the Menace and Garfield I would be exposed to a headline or two.  My opinions of those headlines were then formed exclusively by one of two data sources, my parents’ discussion that I would overhear as I sat next to them reading the comics, and Doonesbury, my first exposure to political satire.

Memes on the other hand, are so much more powerful than the Sunday Comics.  They’re not just funny, anybody can create one, they’re real-time, and spread rapidly, which means young people are more aware of and engaged in current events than ever before. The bad news is, anybody can create one, they’re real-time, engaging and viral and our children are more aware of current events than ever before, adding their own commentary and influencing opinions as it spreads. But who doesn’t love a good meme?

I am one of the 2 out of 10 people that still reads the newspaper; my husband is the other one. I don’t read it to get my breaking news, for that I have automated notifications from all my favorite reputable sources, sent real-time to my screens.  I read the newspaper because I like to. I like sitting in my bed, or in the sunny spot at my kitchen table with my coffee and reading it without any FOMO (if you don’t know what FOMO is, it’s fair to assume you’re not really missing out). I like being able to read an entire article without any concerns that the batteries will run out, and void of any notifications of upcoming meetings, emails or ads grabbing and diverting my attention just as I’m getting to the interesting part. The newspaper gives me an excuse to do nothing but read without feeling guilty I’m not doing something else, like responding to the latest urgent email.

Of course, my GenZ kids don’t do email. As far as they’re concerned urgent and email is an oxymoron, unless they’re waiting for a college acceptance. They IM, text, and Snapchat. Mostly Snapchat. The shorter the message the better, and the more the merrier. For a teen there is nothing better than seeing dozens of notifications scrolling up and down their screen coming in faster than they can click.  It really doesn’t matter who the messages are coming from as they race to respond, because all of them will be returned with a quick close-up photo of their face, or the cat at the end of the bed. Amazingly these kids are able to answer these messages non-stop while completing an AP calculus assignment and carrying on a FaceTime conversation about who will be at the basketball game later.  Meanwhile, I’m still folding up my newspaper and trying to figure out where I set my phone down last.

This in no way means my fellow GenXers are technophobes. As a matter-of-fact we are ardent adopters of all new mediums, pioneers in fact.  We are the MTV generation. We witnessed and embraced the first music video, the first video games, cell phones came about on our watch, and a whopping 95% of us never leave home without it. By our own standards you would be considered weird not to have a cell phone, right? With respect to smartphone ownership, the only difference between a GenXer and our younger cohorts is we don’t have to have ours with us in the bathroom.  For that we still prefer our newspaper or our iPad.

With respect to consumption of media of all types, once again GenXers are no slackers. In fact, according to a Nielson report, GenX members spend almost 32 hours a week toggling between all media, compared to about 27 hours for Millennials and about 20 hours for the Boomers.

The good news is we have more access to news sources than ever before and we are taking advantage of that.  In fact, many of us are self-proclaimed news junkies compelled to glance at our phone every time it vibrates just to see what the latest headline is, ultimately leaving us with the impression we are well informed.

Unfortunately, the rate of change in today’s news cycle means the digital version of in-the-moment reporting, we’ve all grown so addicted to, is invariably going to leave details out.  If it is a busy news day and content online is already overflowing, many smaller news items never make it onto the web. To amplify this void of depth and context, the majority of digital readers are only willing to make it through 300 words tops before they move on, leaving the online readers less informed than print readers.  In fact, according to a BuzzStream survey of over 1200 adults, only 1 in 5 of you that clicked on this article are still reading, and if you aren’t a GenXer the odds are even fewer of you made it this far.

We all have our own preferences for getting news, but if it’s been a while since you read a printed newspaper with no distractions, and just a cup of coffee by your side, I encourage you to give it a try. You might like it, and as a bonus it could provide just the context you needed to understand that latest meme your son retweeted.