Radio: media of the past?

Consider the invention of television and the internet. With these two forms of media dominating the output of news today, I sometimes wonder how radio still exists and why people bother listening to it anymore. Even CDs are out of date with the wave of iPods and MP3 players that have hit the market. Why bother taking a chance on what you'll hear on a music station when you can just plug in and listen

to exactly what you want to at that moment? There is the obvious convenience that radio offers. While driving one can hear the morning traffic report and weather forecast as well as local news. However, this information can be heard in a matter of minutes, and, in many small towns, significantly

less time. Therefore, there must be a reason that people don't turn off the station and return to their CDs. A deeper, and more human reason, I believe, exists. All humans exhibit certain traits that we sometimes forget are integral in our lives. Our sense of curiosity is one very important trait. This is the inner drive for simple understanding of world we live in and ourselves. The same nature that drives explorers to

the most desolate deserts, highest peaks and deepest oceans. When one turns the dial, we are never quite sure what we are going to hear. There is the potential that we may know the genre or style that will be playing but never

the song. I propose that there is some excitement in uncertainty hen so many things are determined for us on a day to day basis. Variety is never a bad thing. Talk radio can really be a hit or miss deal. Stations like NPR offer an interesting alternative to typical stations. Not only do they present in-depth news coverage, but also stories that relate to the human experience and speak volumes to many people. They discuss a range of issues topics from autism to

physics to politics. Radio also works the imagination in the way books do but TV does not. Radio becomes more

real to us because we get to put our own faces with the speakers and can often put ourselves into the context of the story. No, radio is not dying. It is, I believe, here to stay. At least, that is, until we become entirely uninterested in the world around us and our sense of curiosity vanishes entirely.