People are depending less and less on newspapers and more and more on other forms of media to get their news. Even here on the ISU campus, students lean more toward electronic media in order to get the information they want to know. It is great to be able to receive the news on many different formats, but when one of those formats is taken away, it immediately limits students’ knowledge on current events.

The Inter-Residence Hall Association sent out a survey to ISU students living in the residence halls to see how the they would like to spend their dues. Students had been spending $7 in dues on having newspapers in the common areas of the residence halls. After the survey, though, it was decided that newspapers would be removed from the residence halls. The three newspapers that were taken out of campus circulation were The Des Moines Register, The New York Times, and USA Today.

Yes, we all have access to the internet, and yes, we could look at these sites online. However, some websites such as The Des Moines Register can charge their readers after a certain amount of “clicks.” This limits the amount of articles that the students who are interested in being informed can access.

Students deserve to be informed, but more than that, they should want to be informed. It has been well documented that this is not the case, however. For example, the New York Times’ “news IQ” quizzes have shown time and again that we are struggling to keep up with current events not only in our own communities, but around the world.

In today’s society it is expected that we know how to upload photos to Facebook, to share a PowerPoint presentation from an online document or to delete our browsing histories. We know these things, yet we as young adults know virtually nothing about are the problems going on in Syria or the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It is the job of the students to be informed.

Our generation already does not have a good reputation when it comes to social media platforms. Being uninformed about the current issues going on in the news will not help us be able to communicate with generations who do not depend as much on social media. In order for our society to work together, this is just as important as being able to communicate with people in our own generation.

There are of course news outlets on social media where students can read the news, but the fact is that many students are commenting on them before reading the stories, or without having understood what is being reported. This will only hold our public dialogue back, as it is more than difficult to start a conversation on a topic that we do not really know about. It is important to our students to be informed about more than the local news that the Iowa State Daily has to offer; we should pay attention to national and global news stories.

Taking the newspapers out of the residence halls is simply a bad idea. $7 these days is barely enough to buy a Coca-Cola and a candy bar. Is it really not worth a few dollars to have easy access to information about world affairs available in our residence halls?