Another revered publication is in dire straits, victim to a creeping digital takeover of almost everything people used to hold dear in their lives. RDA Holdings, the parent company of Readers' Digest, has filed for bankruptcy in an effort to manage a $465 million debt.
The nearly-a-century-old magazine used to be one of the best-selling and well-loved publications in the world. Many a Filipino family, even to this day, probably have some copies of Readers' Digest tucked away somewhere.
But in a world that has seen people getting swept in a sea change in reading preferences toward digital content -- in their computers and in their smartphones -- the written word in its paper format is increasingly and swiftly getting swept into a corner.
In the United States, which has the greatest concentration of both readers and reading matter, surveys have shown that only less than 20 percent of the population has read a paper magazine the day prior to the taking of the surveys.
Newsweek, which used to be one of the leading news magazines in the world, ceased its paper edition at the end of last year. Its main competitor, Time Magazine, announced recently it was cutting on personnel.
Even books have gone online, and only the most sentimental of readers -- those who claim to be the true book lovers -- have clung on to their increasingly hard-to-come-by hardcovers and paperbacks.
Book inventories at some of the country's largest bookstores have shrunk, prompting sales shifts toward more school supplies and general retail. Some of the smaller bookstores with very limited business options have actually closed shop.
There is probably no stopping the digital takeover of the world. Yet it still might be necessary to ask -- at what price? Scraping beneath any logical answer that may arise, one may find a tinge of sentimentality that prodded the question in the first place.
Yet it is not a whimsical question just because it is rooted in sentimentality. Lest we forget, it is sentiment that lies at the core of our humanity. We're human because we feel. There is in holding a book or magazine that warms us more than digital convenience ever can.