High schoolers have a way of making you realize how fast the world is changing.

Take the world of newspapers, for example.

If there was any doubt that the world of news is shifting rapidly, the students who attended Tuesday’s media symposium at the Copiah-Lincoln Community College proved how quickly the traditional student newspaper is becoming obsolete.

Of the 150 or so high school students who attended the symposium, nearly a quarter were using handheld devices to take photos, send messages and communicate with each other via text messaging and wireless e-mail.

Bright glows emanated from the tiny screens scattered across the room. It was almost like witnessing a sea of lit cigarette lighters at some 1980s Chicago concert.

Talking to one of the school’s instructors, I recognized how much these tiny devices have affected the world of high school journalism.

Even though all of the schools at the symposium print a traditional black and white newspaper, readership among high school students has dropped significantly, Brookhaven High School journalism instructor Linda Monroe said Tuesday.

Students are no longer picking up their Natchez High Echoes or Panther Printz as much as they used to, she said.

“They don’t like to read,” one of her students quickly answered.

And they don’t have to, another said as he pointed to his cellphone equipped with a wireless Internet connection.

With such handheld devices, students send each other more photos and more instantaneous news than any student newspaper could hope to publish.

The print product, it seems, has lost its relevance in students’ lives. It is boring, they say.

Facebook, e-mail and text messaging have replaced the traditional forms of communication. None of these existed when I was a student.

Boy, has the world changed — or has it?

Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Tumblr, Bebo may be the catch phrases of the day for the teens attending Tuesday’s conference.

But other words like professionalism, hard work, determination, persistence, creativity and dedication were on the lips of the presenters.

WLBT anchorman Howard Ballou and Hollywood film producer Jennifer Ogden have both witnessed first-hand the changes in news reporting and film production.

Despite the great advances in technology, the two presenters encouraged students with old-fashioned values.

Natchez’s own Jennifer Ogden Combs related the story of her first movie job interview at the age of 14. Not knowing anything about the film industry, Combs applied for a secretarial job for a production company filming a Hollywood production in Natchez.

Unlike her peers, who were thinking about summer vacation, Combs dressed in her nicest skirt and walked in with confidence for an interview.

She was asked if she could type and take shorthand. She knew she had typed term papers and thought she could takes notes really fast, so she said, “Yes.”

Because of her confidence, professionalism, assertiveness and willingness to work hard, Combs got the job. Little did she know that the secretarial job would lead to a career working with multi-million dollar budgets and famous movie stars. At the time, she had no clue that she would win an Emmy award.

In world filled with change, it was those old-fashioned values that brought her success.

That was her message to the students Tuesday afternoon. Maybe she should have texted.

Ben Hillyer is the web editor of The Natchez Democrat. He can be reached at 601-445-3540 or ben.hillyer@natchezdemocrat.com.