My son is heavily into his iPod Touch; games, internet, homework research, video and music are activities he regularly undertakes with it and he wouldn’t swap it for the world.
My son is also into reading and loves The Famous Five in particular- his appetite for reading is a pleasure to see, as it would be for any parent, but he is adamant that he will not read eBooks. He is 9 years old and when I commented to him the other day that you can buy books to read on the iPod, his reaction was “I like to read real books. Screens hurt my eyes after a while and I like the feel of a book.” He then went into a typical 9 year old description of how the “book is there in my hand” and how “an eBook is just words on a screen”.
It is a fascinating insight into the mind of a child who has not had many years enjoying the feel of real books, and it highlighted the stark differences between paper books and their digital equivalents. Is it built inside us to prefer reading on paper? The story can be extended by the book cover, the typeface and most importantly the fact that it is an object which is often times desirable to look at and hold.
It is different than music- when you listen to a song you don’t stare at your CD player or even the turntable if you can remember back that far; you simply listen to the music. When reading a book you turn the pages, you hold it and you immerse yourself into the experience. It seems that my son has already discovered this without even knowing it.
Publishers and software developers are doing their best to make the eBook feel more alive, but if a 9 year old child who is into technology in a big way still prefers the tradition book form what chance do they have?
Well, let him read the way he likes to when he can. And let him test one of the dedicated eInk devices and listen what he says (would be really interesting).
The discussion “haptic experience vs. portability” will be with us in the future and p-books and e-books will exist side by side for a long time (Like the paper-file in the office is still going strong.) The publishing industry will have to sell in both media-forms and maybe develop an up-price segment of “Collectors p-books” while shifting the bulk of it’s activity to ebooks in the long term.
I’m with your son all the way Shaun. Good on him. I love technology, but I just don’t “get” e-books. Have tried.
My wife has finally changed her mind, and quite suddenly. I came into the room one day to find her staring at her phone with her book closed beside her. She said she was tired, and only wanted to read a few pages because the book was so good. But she liked the way that with her phone she just pressed the button and there it was ready and open at the page where she left off. She liked that she could read a few pages any time any where.
But each to their own. I think the most important thing is that people are still reading, especially kids. In the summer I prefer sitting outside in the sun, or on the beach (preferably in the sun as well) reading a paper book. Obviously the sun and sand don’t help when it comes to ebooks… but it’s relaxing. Other than that I love the convenience of an ebook.
As I see it the advantages of ebooks should be:
1. Cheaper (Several expensive steps are unnecessary)
2. Lighter (Can have several books on one light device)
3. Searchable (Great for reference books)
4. Convenient (Can always have them with me
5. Multimedia can be incorporated (Can have animated diagrams in reference books for example)
So what are publisher doing?
1. Making them almost as expensive as proper books
2. Producing them in different formats so that one device cannot read all
3. Allowing searching sometimes
4. Adding DRM to make them inconvenient
5. Not incorporating multimedia
A classic example of how NOT to introduce a new technology