Gone are the days when the Carrie Bradshaws of the world carried crisp copies of Vogue in their handbags. Peculiar are the lingering few who still indulge in physical newspapers or encyclopedias. Now we have e-fashion, e-news, and e-literature. The glossy sheen of a new magazine and the crisp smell of a freshly opened book now feel like distant, almost forgotten luxuries.

The shift from print to digital readership reflects the rise of digital alternatives in historically print-dominated industries driven by technological advancements, accessibility, and convenience — three attractive selling points of digital media. 

Classic fashion and lifestyle magazines, like Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Cosmopolitan, have reported declining print sales in recent years, signaling the end of an era when print magazines were central to pop culture. In my view, popular media’s shift from print to digital engagement has been detrimental to our media literacy and critical thinking skills. 

From long-form to short-form

BookTok has emerged as a thriving community for readers on TikTok, Pinterest is becoming a popular destination for fashion and art enthusiasts, and Substack is evolving into a key platform for aspiring writers to share their work and get paid for it. 

In the past, readers spent significantly more time flipping through print magazines, newspapers, and books. But digital users can now easily curate their feeds. Social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram that dominate the digital sphere prioritize short video formats and minimal text. These platforms enable us to fast-forward through uninteresting content and consume dozens of short-form posts in mere minutes. However, this convenience may come at a cost.

‘TikTok brain’ refers to the harmful effects of short-form content on attention spans. Pediatrician and literacy researcher John Hutton describes TikTok as a “dopamine machine,” highlighting how it diminishes users’ attention spans. The platform achieves this by delivering quick dopamine boosts, allowing users to engage solely with enjoyable content and effortlessly filter out unwanted material with the swipe of a finger. 

Neuroscientist Patrick Porter similarly explains that TikTok and other platforms promoting short-form, easily digestible media are “changing the way people use their brains.” By simplifying and minimizing knowledge to make media more digestible, these platforms weaken our literacy and critical thinking skills, rewiring our brains to function more like search engines than information storage hubs.

The literary as an advertising tool

While print fashion and lifestyle magazines were partially designed to promote popular products, they also served as a vital medium for artistic and literary expression. These magazines often featured long-form content, such as feature articles, celebrity interviews, and editorial letters, many of which routinely spanned multiple pages. Print readers tend to spend more time flipping through pages and reading, engage more deeply, and absorb information better than digital readers.

I don’t believe the artistic axis to magazines and other traditional forms of print media has translated too well to the short-form digital media landscape. Instead, the focus is increasingly becoming all about procuring views, likes, and engagement — ultimately, to generate revenue

Sponsored posts and suspiciously overenthusiastic product review spiels have transformed the digital media space into an ‘ad-pocalypse.’ The shift in terminology reflects the broader transition from art to advertising: what were once articles and reviews about fashion, clothing, and books have now predominantly become ‘content.’ 

Comment section consumption

I believe print magazine readers are more likely to develop unique opinions about the fashion, art, and literature they engage with. Meanwhile, digital readers of blogs and social media posts engage not only with the media itself but also interact with the opinions of other consumers, as users can easily and instantly share and comment on the same content. 

This diminishes users’ ability to form unique, individual opinions from critically engaging with media. It’s difficult to maintain your perspective on a clothing item or a literary work when everyone else seems to think differently.

Aestheticization is another example of the impact of collective consumption. Enjoying specific books, music genres, and fashion styles has sneakily become a way to define a person’s entire persona, influencing their willingness to interact with others based on whether they share the same ‘aesthetic.’

Social media has also fueled intense virtue signalling — performative yet ultimately hollow displays of morality or ‘coolness.’ Hyper-specific niches, like ‘Lana Del Rey Americana’ and ‘blueberry milk nails clean girl’ are another phenomenon that goes hand in hand with virtue signalling. By emphasizing highly specific, mutually exclusive categorizations in aesthetic expression, these niches exclude anyone who doesn’t meet all the criteria required to claim subscription to the niche. 

Artistic niches are nothing new; what is new is the extent to which we allow them to limit our engagement — not only with media but also with people outside our rigid niches, ultimately trapping us in our artistic echo chambers. 

Curate critical thinking, not content

The death of the magazine and other print media can undoubtedly be attributed to rising technology and digitization. However impending the slow disappearance of iconic and cherished forms of print may seem, what remains within our control is the ability to refresh and refine our critical thinking, engagement, and consumption skills. 

Limiting daily habits, like doom-scrolling and overindulgence in digital media, is one way to halt technological brain rot in its tracks. Another is to consciously engage with hobbies that have been co-opted by technology in their original, technology-free forms, by stepping outside of digital spheres to reconnect with them. 

We don’t have to consult TikTok for analyses of our favourite books or fashion ‘inspo.’ Instead, we might consider more intimate, small-scale forums — like engaging in critical, independent thought or having discussions with friends rather than usernames. 

We can, and should, take a proactive approach to prevent digital brain death from taking over.

Shontia Sanders is a third-year student at St. Michael’s College studying political science. She is an associate Opinion editor for The Varsity and an associate editor for POLIS.