Digital media have many advantages, but in all the fuss over the latest technologies and the plethora of media available online, many people forget all the great things about print, American media critic William Powers told the annual Readership Conference of the World Association of Newspapers in Amsterdam Thursday.

“The world needs – desperately needs – what newspapers do,” said Powers, media columnist for U.S. magazine The Nation. Paper is a peaceful island amid the digital “chaos,” and an “emerging strength” that needs more attention, he said.

“Paper's great strength is that it allows the mind to settle down into that peaceful deep-dive state in which we do our best thinking. This state is much harder to achieve when we're reading in the digital medium, where there is endless information, and so many possible tasks to undertake at any moment. On the Internet, there is no beginning and no end,” Powers told the audience. “When you're reading an article on a screen, your mind is conscious of all the other information that's just a click away - from your inbox to the latest headlines to your bank account to a billion You Tube videos. Thus, instead of escaping other demands on your attention as you read, you are mentally fending off those demands every moment you're at the screen.”

The fact that newspapers' print versions are “disconnected from the digital grid” is a “secret weapon,” if welded correctly, he said.