Paywalls Will Dry Out The News Junkies

By Darryl Mason

Here are 16 stories I've now got open in various windows and tabs. I intend to read them all, but there doesn't seem to be enough time to soak it all up, so much fresh news and information flooding in, constantly, sometimes feel stressed when I see how many unread stories I've bookmarked or left hopefully on the desktop, piling up, too many to read, but all too interesting, and seemingly important, vital even, to x-click and disappear, but which one to read first then, or to read all the way through without almost unconsciously clicking to another window, another story, another buffet of information, interrupted by a quick check of what new news is online, a pang of guilt for not having read a story that's been hovering around in a window for five days, neglected, forgotten....

This is Digital Option Anxiety.

I think some of us might need some kind of Information Addicts Anonymous soon.

So to the stories (of which I probably could have read half in the time it took me to fumble over that intro) :

UK Independent : Dignity For The Dead Scarce In Haiti

Nikola Tesla Is A Man For The 21st Century, And Why Not? He Invented It

Wall Street Journal : The Publishing Slush Pile, Where Unknown Writers Without Agents Could Once Be Discovered, Is Dead

Washington Post : Haiti's Elite Spared Much Of The Devastation

New York Times : The Coming Revolution In Independent Movie Distribution

In 2009, More US Military Killed Themselves Than Died By Enemy Action In Iraq And Afghanistan

Pope Benedict Squares Off Against Jewish Critics Who Want To Stop The Sainting Of The 'Nazi Pope'

Death Of Two Teenagers In Harsh Outback Changed Reality Of Isolated Station Life

The Swine Flu Pandemic : A Multi-Billion Dollar Pharmaceutical Industry Conspiracy?

They Fell Hard For Obama, Now The Doubts Are Setting In

The Medical Crisis In Haiti Was Already "Overwhelming" Three Days Ago

The Grubby World Of Mainstream Media Taking Free Op-Eds From Politicians Pushing Agendas That Benefit Their Financial Interests

Haiti CorpsePorn : Would The Media Be Showing All Those Bodies If They Were Dead Middle Class White People?

Late Cold War Era Paper On Effects Of Global Thermonuclear War After Detonation Of More Than 57,000 Nuclear Weapons. Australia And New Zealand Amongst The Winners

And, without irony, a Reddit thread on Being Addicted To Information

This will be the year that most of the newspapers I've linked to above - The UK Guardian, The UK Independent, The New York Times, The Washington Post - will begin to disappear behind pay walls.

I'm really going to miss the days of The Free.

Paywalls will mean much less instant access to news and information. But that may turn out to be a good thing. Cutting off the supply of infodrugs.

The withdrawals, however, will be reality altering.