In Defense of Digital Readers, and Not

via Poorly Drawn Lines

I recently finished Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, a historical fiction documenting the rise of Thomas Cromwell in the court of King Henry VIII from 1500 to 1535 (quick Tudor history for those who hate dates as much as I do: things was around the time when Henry was trying to divorce Katherine so he could marry Anne Boleyn). Having borrowed the book a few months ago, I was rather determined to get through all 560 pages since the last thing you want is your friend to start thinking you lost the book. 

Given that I’m not particularly apt at Tudor history nor am I British, Wolf Hall was a difficult read: not only was I unfamiliar with a majority of the historical references, Mantel’s prose was the extra impediment to me reading as quickly as I usually do. But, I’m a stubborn reader, and after two and a half weeks of committed reading, I managed to read that very last page, the very last sentence, and very soundly close the hardcover book for the last time. Take THAT, historical fiction! I thought. 

What had gotten me through Wolf Hall was a mixture of literary mulishness, a masochistically self-imposed reading deadline, and most importantly the addictive satisfaction of turning pages, closing the hardcover shut, and watching the progression of my bookmark inch closer and closer from the beginning to the end of the book. Had I read Wolf Hall as a digital book, I highly doubt I would have managed to even get through twenty five percent of Mantel’s Man Booker Prize winning book at this point even. 

Currently, I own a large book collection and an Amazon Kindle. There’s an appeal to both physical and digital versions of reading, though I’m inclined to say that on any given day, I opt for printed pages over a e-reader without any hesitation (even if cost is an issue, there’s always the local library (or your friends if they’re not disgruntled with you)). Sure, e-readers may be more ‘green’ than printed books, but by how much? After all, you’re manufacturing electronics that require electricity to continue being useful. Then again, there’s also the issue having too many books if you’re like me and have a difficult time not itching for a buy every time you step foot in a bookstore. 

But I digress. The main issue, of course, is the difference between having a physical copy of what you’re reading versus a digital, less infringing digital equivalent. Is it safe to say that digital readers are 'the’ future, just like how digital music, digital photography and digital filmmaking are overtaking their respective predecessors in the market? Or is it reasonable to believe that the old school of printed press, with its dog-eared pages, its coffee spills, its bug-crushing capacity, will persevere? 

A couple of months ago my friend Allan sent me a New York Times article that discussed the evolution of how we read, titled “From Scroll to Screen.” It’s an interesting article that I highly recommend to anyone, but here’s the general gist: 

Image via the New York Times, illustrated by Joon Mo Kang

  • The Scroll: you could only read and search linearly since you navigated by unrolling the scroll progressively
  • The Codex (aka what we currently associate printed books with): you can skip around passages with incredible ease; reading and searching can be linear and non-linear
  • The E-Reader: the most compact, capacity to skip between and search for passages limited compared to codex since there is only one screen

E-reader enthusiasts will probably argue that it’s easier to search on a digital book for certain quotes or to define a term, or that if you have a good reader like the iPad or Kindle, the digital reading experience can be a good one. True, but at the end of the day, the codex still has the advantage over the e-reader because it’s not restricted by a single screen. 

There’s also the issue of attention span. Like most digital devices, e-readers have the capacity to store thousands of books/articles; however, this tends to encourage a sort of reading ADD since one, we don’t have a physical sense of how far we’ve progressed in the book and two, it’s so much easier to just find another book/article to read if you get frustrated and/or bored with what you’re currently reading. This reading ADD is sort of like how we can peruse through our digital photographs, digital music and movie libraries a lot more quickly than searching through printed photographs, CDs or DVDs. Ask yourself: when was the last time you spent a serious amount of time looking at a photograph for more than a split second, or listened to an entire album without changing to a different one, or even watching only one movie in a sitting and uninterrupted by anything? 

I prefer printed books over digital equivalents to avoid reading ADD. Sure, I could switch between different books, but even that encourages less reading ADD than an e-reader since I have to actively search for something via my personal library, the local library, or the bookstore, as opposed to internet browsing. I’ve yet to read a book on my Kindle; I currently have two in my Kindle library, but that’s because one of them is out of print (David Bordwell’s Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema) and I got the other one for free from a friend (Machine of Death: A Collection of Stories about people who know how they will die). Besides these two reasons – it’s not available in print or it’s free so why not? – I don’t have much of an incentive to give up the tactility of turning pages in favor of staring at one screen and pressing a forward/back button. 

Alas, I haven’t even given e-readers a chance at this point. After all, why would I purchase a Kindle if I’m going to end up bashing it? 

E-readers are more than fantastic for writings that are published online – which, these days, is almost everything from news to blogs to academic resources. I read an average of five to fifteen online articles and essays per day, and oftentimes I get reading fatigue when I stare at my LCD-lit computer screen for long periods of time.

Once I bought my Kindle, I got into the habit of saving pdf versions of articles/essays I found interesting, uploading them to my Kindle, and enjoying them without the distraction of internet surfing/computer multitasking (it also helps that unlike the iPad, the Kindle uses e-ink technology, which puts less strain on my eyes). Once I’m finished reading an article/essay on the Kindle, I can easily delete or archive it for future reference. Gone are the days where I have a pile of printed articles, magazines or newspapers collecting dust on my desk, reminding me of how far I’ve fallen behind on my to-read list; now, I read in blissful ignorance of how many articles/essays I’ve downloaded to my “to read” queue on my Kindle. 

Additionally, for those still in school, e-readers offer a fantastic alternative to needing to print out pages of powerpoint slides, notes, required reading articles, and even textbooks. In fact, I think textbooks that are optimized for digital reading are ideal since they’re cheaper than printed equivalents (which is especially ideal for students struggling to stay in budget – I’ve bought textbooks in the past that nearly cost two hundred dollars), it’s lighter to carry around a digital copy, and once you’re done with the class, you don’t have to worry about what to do with your textbook, e.g. selling or storing it (textbook publishers frequently 'update’ the book editions to make more money, and I’ve run into situations where professors refuse to teach from previous editions even if the update is effectively null).

The only feasible downside I see to digital textbooks is that you can’t highlight or write as freely in them as you could with printed versions. Still, the prospect of carrying around a giant lump that costs too much and isn’t likely to be part of your 'favorite books’ collection seems less appealing than losing the capacity to highlight/write/doodle all over the pages of your textbook. 

I don’t believe digital reading should replace the learning experience for kids – in fact, I’m very much against it for one simple reason: imagination. 

The American Academy of Pediatrics recently recommended that babies under the age of two to not watch or be exposed to electronic media, citing: 

Studies cited in the guidelines say that parents interact less with children when the television is on, and that a young child at play will glance at the TV—if it is on, even in the background—three times a minute.

The study mostly focuses on the language development, and while they focus on television in the quote, I’m rather adamant about the benefits of reading without the distractions of someone else’s creative endeavor numbing kids from imagining things themselves (note: I’m aware that there are some printed children’s books where kids can physically interact with them, such as pressing a button for sound or pulling something to make a picture pop out. However, this falls back to the physical versus digital aspects of reading). 

Reading comprehension is one of the most important skills you need as an adult, and if you don’t develop a habit of processing information early, there’s a good chance you’ll fall behind. Traditional reading encourages this kind of development: without the reading ADD that you get from reading things on the internet or even shuffling through your e-book library every impulse you get, printed books basically force us to focus, and to really process (and even visualize) what each sentence, what each word weighs and means. 

I don’t know if digital reading will eventually take over printed press, but given its current limits (the codex still feels intuitive and less awkward than switching and searching in a e-book), I have my doubts about it, just like I’ve had my doubts about 3D  taking over 2D movies for quite awhile. However, unlike 3D movies, I do think e-readers have their use, and that they won’t disappear from the market anytime soon. But regardless of your preference, at the end of the day, reading is still better than nothing, and that’s a fact. 

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