A few days ago, a student at Hayden High School turned up missing.

The sports angle here is that he’s on the Wildcats football roster. I won’t use his name, because it’s already all over Facebook and Twitter.

Nightfall came, and the young man had left his home without notice, and without his phone. The family was understandably worried, so the call went out with tweets and status messages. After checking with the family to see if it was okay, I posted the notice on The North Jefferson News Facebook page.

The response was extremely high for our small operation, and indicative of how prevalent all things cyberspace have become in our lives.

The teen turned up early the next morning, sleeping away in a friend’s camper. He didn’t want to wake his buddy in the middle of the night. All’s well that ends well, as Shakespeare would say.

The circumstances aren’t terribly important for our discussion here. It’s how the word spread. The medium is the message. Marshall McLuhan had it right after all.

In an amazingly short time, the online world has surpassed printed media of all forms. I’ve heard it everywhere I go to cover games: “I read your story on the Internet.”

Pretty much anyone under age 45 — and a lot more over that age than you think — are getting their news from online sources. In fact, when I visited Mortimer Jordan a few months ago, I passed the school library, where I spotted a student reading what I call “the dead tree edition.”

I’m pretty sure my lower jaw dropped to my then-larger stomach.

Our corporate parents at CNHI have realized this, too. So it came as no surprise a couple of weeks ago when Danielle The Boss Lady announced a major change in our operating policy, summed up in two simple words: Online first.

It’s why you likely read this column already on Monday night.

It means that any story we write normally goes on our website first, where it is then linked through Facebook and Twitter. It goes into the print edition at the next opportunity, whenever that may be. It is why most of you knew about the missing teenager over the weekend as it happened, and not now.

My initial reaction to the change: What took them so long?

Yes, I still love to read the dead tree edition, and I like to design it, too. But I’ve also spent a large part of my adult life as a computer programmer, and I love some of the neat things I can do, such as video. You’ll see more of that as I get the online operation ramped up.

What does this mean to you? More timely coverage of news, obviously, and more room to cover things we may not have had room for in print.

It means that if you didn’t see your team’s game reported, it means the coach didn’t send it to us — I can still only be at one place at one time. If you still don’t see their games, pester your coach — often it means more hearing a parent complain than a cranky old reporter. Better yet, volunteer to help them with stats and reporting games.

We’ve seen the future coming for a while.

Now it’s here, and it’s in your lap or your pocket. It should be interesting.