When we see the way newspapers and other print media are changing radically, we see a reflection of the radical changes in all jobs and careers in our times.
What did you want to be when you grew up? What have you really done and what are you doing for your job or career right now? See what I mean?
Not only are newspapers disappearing — and print magazines and books declining in sales and readership — the very nature of what we do to be informed and entertained looks almost nothing like it did even 20 years ago. And the changes since my childhood 50-some years ago are even more radical.
When I was a lad of 8 or 10 years old, I would never have dreamed of such a thing as a career where I could earn my income (well, okay, only a small part of it right now) by writing on the Internet.
In simplest terms, I might describe my main job or career this way:
“I’m a blogger and affiliate marketer on the Internet.”
If I were to explain that to someone from the 1950s in terminology they might understand, I would need to say something like this:
“I type words on a typewriter that sort of magically stores those words electronically, while displaying them on something resembling a television screen. After those words are stored electronically, there is another nearly magical electronic network of such machines linked together, through which I can almost instantaneously broadcast those words in a way that hundreds of millions of people can choose to read the words.
“In addition, they can make purchases from merchants who are connected to that instantaneous-electronic-broadcast-network and, because of the way I am connected to that network, the merchants will know whether those purchases were made by people who came to them as a result of my words — and the merchants will pay me a small commission of real money for those purchases.”
Never in my wildest science fiction/fantasy besotted little mind in, say, 1957 (when I turned 10) would I have thought about a job or career doing anything like that.
So — what do you think your KIDS will want to be when they grow up??