All kinds of readers sweep the world. There are young, reluctant readers, experienced readers, casual readers, student readers, non-readers, and the lovers of all stories. Glorified bookworms and experienced readers are the ones that appreciate the actual book. They treasure the content, the look, feel and smell. Some of those readers have switched to a more convenient way of reading, some have taken the “pledge to read the printed word”, and some have accepted a balance of the two.
There is a debate over who invented the actual e-book, but most seem to agree on Ángela Ruiz Robles, a teacher from Galicia, Spain who called her early invention Enciclopedia Mecánica or the Mechanical Encyclopedia in 1949. Also, worth mentioning is Michael S. Hart who was granted access of the Xerox Sigma V mainframe during his extensive computer time spent at the University of Illinois. In 1971, Hart first typed the Declaration of Independence into the computer in plain text in the hopes that people would be able to download it and others and view on different devices with ease.
I was unaware of e-books existence until 2007 when Amazon came out with the Kindle. On November 19th, in just five hours, Amazon sold out of the Kindle at $399 each. It remained out of stock for five months following. Since its release ten years ago, Amazon has released eight generations of Kindles and counting.
According to the Publishers Association (the leading representative voice for books, journal, audio and electronic publishers in the UK), “sales of consumer e-books have dropped by 17%, while sales of physical books have increased by 8%”. However, just because e-books aren’t selling as well as they used to in the UK, doesn’t mean that they aren’t still selling on Amazon or in the USA. Emma Cueto asserts that “print books never actually stopped leading the charge, considering that e-book sales have never made up more than a third of all book sales”. Could it be that everyone is over the 2007–2015 Kindle hype? Maybe people have realized by now what works best for them. Especially people with dyslexia.
A 2013 study tested reading comprehension and speed in 103 high school students with dyslexia. The results were that people with dyslexia read more effectively and easily on a e-reader compared to reading on paper. On an e-reader, you can adjust the text size and line spacing which is helpful to people with dyslexia or those with poor eyesight. Young people also seem to prefer e-readers probably because the e-readers are similar to their smartphones and tablets they already use on a daily basis. The portability, seemingly endless space for several books in one slim object, and the cool feeling of participating in the futuristic technology era are all very appealing. But what happens when that Kindle battery dies? What happens when you stay up late reading on a screen and you can’t get to sleep because your production of melatonin (a hormone that preps the body for sleep) decreased? What happens if your favorite book isn’t available for digital download? What happens when you participate in a book club and can’t recall the event/detail everyone is discussing?
A study presented in Italy at a conference back in 2014 determined that “the haptic and tactile feedback of a Kindle does not provide the same support for mental reconstruction of a story as a print pocket book does.” But maybe that doesn’t matter for casual readers. Maybe they just want something easy while they’re relaxing on the beach. Casual readers wouldn’t necessarily mind the distracting notifications while they’re reading because they’re not really paying attention anyway as Naomi S. Baron puts it, “When a digital device has an Internet connection, it’s hard to resist the temptation to jump ship….readers are human”.
People like hard copies for a variety of reasons. What seems popular right now however is the appearance of books. People are photographing themselves posing with books staged in a beautiful state that makes bookworms want to jump through the screen to be there. There are also photos of animals posed perfectly to give the illusion that they are actually reading. Some go as far as defacing books for the sake of art by drawing typography onto the pages. Do these people actually love to read the books they are posing with? Or do they just love the idea of it? Maybe even they are trying to impress people in the offset illusion of intelligence. Whatever the case, books are treasured and displayed with pride almost everywhere. Even “at the turn of the millennium [when] publishers ‘cut back on the quality of the paper, so if you left a book in the sun it went yellow. They were gluing, not sewing…Nowadays, if you take a cover off, there is likely to be something interesting underneath it.’” People still collected the real thing. Maybe because e-books weren’t as popular then as they later came to be, but maybe because they were used to feeling the pages that held the words that transported them into other worlds. The ease of dog-earing a page to return to later or writing notes and highlighting favorite passages is too appealing for some to consider an e-reader. Even though e-readers have advanced and some now offer versions of writing/highlighting, even dog-earing corners, they still don’t have that smell or that sharp crack from the spine of a book being opened for the first time. You can’t feel the progress you’ve made, only guess “the end is really the end, or the end equals 93% followed by 7% of index and/or questions for book clubs.”
But why does it matter? Why does it have to be a black or white choice? Why can’t people choose both? Do publishers actually care how people read? James Daunt, managing director of Waterstones (formerly Waterstone’s, is a British book retailer that operates 275 stores), says “[w]e want people to read. We don’t mind how they read”.
I personally prefer physical books, but I do have the Amazon Kindle app for the casual books I read on and off, free classics, and a few others that weren’t available in print at the time. I enjoy my personal collection that clutters several rooms and adorns bookshelves that don’t match the rest of the furniture. A few times I have posed with my books, other times I post a quick picture on social media to promote what I’m reading and track my progress amongst communities like GoodReads (the world’s largest site for readers and book recommendations).
Emma Cueto puts it perfectly:
The reality is that there is absolutely no reason print and e-books can’t coexist in the books market. I realize that can be hard to wrap your head around given the way the two have been portrayed as inherent adversaries in the media for so long, but it actually is possible. And more importantly, coexistence really does seem to be what’s happening, at least for right now. (2015)
Originally submitted June 28, 2017.
