I'm beginning to notice my own attention and literacy slip a bit. Reading takes more effort. Novels are harder to follow because I'm not used to nuanced storytelling. I only glaze through articles online. I'm not deep-focus reading as much as I used to when I was younger, or rather, prior to owning a smartphone.

That said I'm exploring ways to get the casual reading back to a healthy level, limit screentime as a proxy for waiting, and get back to deep focus reading.

One way of doing that is magazines. I used to love getting magazines in the mail in my teens. Game Informer, Popular Mechanics, Wired and Motocyclist where my favorites.

There's something novel about holding the paper in your hand. The experience of getting a new issue in the mail every month is fun and sometimes unexpected. I relish things in life that make you SLOW DOWN and sit still for a bit.

Hell, in the day of AI slop and revisionist media, having a physical record of articles seems more important and, to some degree, more valuable as a collectible than ever before.

Last time I picked up a popular mechanics mag, it felt like one large advertisement for consumer tech with a few articles talking about some military applied tech. Seems like a far cry from providing blueprints for a workbench a la their older style.

Thumbing through a few magazines at my local bookstore leaves me wanting a bit more. I know ads are a part of the how the magazine remans solvent and, I know hobby magazines thrive on showing the latest and greatest items to continue enjoying that hobby, but its' nice to read more in depth and nuanced articles about your chosen topic.

I'm going to subscribe to a few of these magazines based on my interests:

• Make Magazine
• AMA
• Overland Journal
• Cozy Gamer
• Grassroots Motorsports

Questions for the Audience:

1. Do you subscribe to any magazines?
2. Do you value print media?
3. Do you think magazines have a place in today's mediascape with how fast stories are posted and discussed online?
4. Do you have any mag's that I should check out?
5. Is there a magazine that you think should exist but doesn't?