Take a close look at the magazine page (at right) from the early 20th century. Those are lovely long columns of gray type.
Back at the turn of the last century, a reader couldn't just skim the page for the highpoints. This content was meat-and-potatoes reading, not meant for anyone in a hurry or with anything else to divide their attention. It was produced when magazines were the king of all media.
The days when a single magazine page held three or four thousand words is ancient history. People don't have the time to read dense copy, and, even if they did, publishers don't have a large enough budget (or staff) to afford to produce it.
It's amazing to look at this page and think about how different the world is today, and marvel at how that change is reflected in something so mundane and simple as a single magazine page. This gray, old page does illustrate--in a plain but effective manner--how much has changed in the way we consume media as well as our expectations of what we receive from it.