I met my boyfriend in a cafe one afternoon, and he had finished reading articles he saved on his Kindle. What he said was interesting: how he read all those stories, yet didn’t take away anything particularly important or memorable. As if, at the end of the day, not much is gained from scouring and consuming as much as we can on the Internet.

So I learn of an earthquake halfway across the world, in Italy, moments after it happens. Or I read that Steve Jobs or Whitney Houston or Adam Yauch have died from seeing the endless stream of RIP tweets as the news breaks. This is information I will hear anyway, at some point, through word of mouth, or flipping through a newspaper, or some other way.

So, why must I know first?