This is the weekend edition of TheMarioBlog and will be updated as needed. The next blog post is Monday, March 7.
Settle down for a long disconnect from the digital world with Tyler Brulé’s Monocle Magazine
No more alerts. No more pings. Let's put those digital devices away, perhaps for 30 minutes or so.
Surprising but, of course, it makes perfect sense. I remember chatting about this with Tyler Brulé, publisher of Monocle Magazine. We were recording a segment for his Monocle Radio, in London, and during the break Tyler asked me what I thought about what he referred to as “the power of disconnect.”
In fact, as Tyler sees it, there will always be a desire for printed publications precisely because of our desire to disconnect.
“Who wouldn’t like to sit under a tree or by the fireplace with a good book, magazine or weekend newspaper?,” he asked.
That thought transported me momentarily to Belleair Beach, Florida, where I have a second home, and I pictured me sitting under a palm tree, with the breezes of the Gulf of Mexico caressing my face, while I read without any digital devices reminding me of an email, social media message or a news alert. The total lean back experience. Sounds grand.
Now, Horizon Media’s Kirk Olson and Sheri Roder, who have been tracking this trend for some time have this observation: “a wave of consumers are disconnecting from their digital devices in a quest for more authentic connections with others, more privacy and a sense of personal identity.”
In a way, Tyler Brulé’s Monocle Magazine already proves the point that many still love the luxury of paper. His magazine has about 80,000 subscribers all over the world, with a large majority in the United States. The magazine is robust and takes days to read.
It is successful with advertisers, too. In fact, in a recent interview, Tyler mentioned that print is the cash cow for his company, one of the strongest performers of the UK newsstand.
“We can see there continue to be more people who read on paper than off of a backlit screen,” Tyler has said.
Perhaps this new Horizon Media study validates why they do.