You might see a little more of this issue than usual. We won’t be putting another fresh paper on stands on Feb. 23 – it’s reading week at the University of Winnipeg, and we’re doing another online-only issue instead.

These days, the line between our online and “real” lives can get more and more blurry. So many of our interactions bounce back and forth between the two. We get a lot of news and information online too, and sometimes it seems like the world is speeding up, and we may wonder, is this moving too fast?

There are some perks to our online content. We can publish special articles outside of our weekly news cycle. We’re not bound by space on a page, and can put up photo galleries or extend beautiful illustrations to share their full glory. 

And we’ve got a lot of fun giveaways on social media too – with less hassle than clipping out a little entry form and mailing it in (if anyone even still remembers doing that). We can respond to feedback in real time and have conversations with our readers.

But we’re also always happy to see people out in the world with a physical copy of The Uniter. There’s a certain pleasure in reading a tactile object. Its batteries won’t run out in the cold (though your fingertips may still freeze a little). You will know that the order of articles and the placement of images is carefully curated by our design team, not by an algorithm. 

While an endless stream of information can seem liberating, at times, it’s also overwhelming. With a physical paper, you will see everything, you can read anything, and when you get to the end, you’re done. You’ll be as caught up as we are, at least until the next week. 

Luckily, we don’t have to choose between the two. We’re going to keep doing both, except for next week, when we’ll have a fresh, brand-new (but still finite) issue online for you at uniter.ca. We’ll see you there.

Published in Volume 71, Number 20 of The Uniter (February 16, 2017)