have ebooks truly improved the reading experience?
"In a world of intrusive technology, we must engage in a kind of struggle if we wish to sustain moments of solitude. E-reading opens the door to distraction. It invites connectivity and clicking and purchasing. The closed network of a printed book, on the other hand, seems to offer greater serenity. It harks back to a pre-jacked-in age. Cloth, paper, ink: For these read helmet, cuirass, shield. They afford a degree of protection and make possible a less intermediated, less fractured experience. They guard our aloneness. That is why I love them, and why I read printed books still." ~ Mohsin Hamid
Throughout the entire existence of the human race, man has attempted and succeeded at making tasks easier. With everything there is evolution, including the reading experience. Many people may think that the evolution of reading only began with digitization however from as far back as the late 1500’s a wide range of reading machines have been developed.
In 1810 ,The Revolving 5 book reading stand was created to simulate simultaneous cross referencing books. Years after several other reading machines were created, in 1920 Bradley Allen Fiske even invented a portable reading machine that allowed miniaturized texts to be read through a magnifying lens. As developers moved closer and closer to digitization throughout the 1900’s, the first commercially sold eReader ‘The Rocket eBook’ was launched in 1998. The most popular eReader on the market, the Amazon Kindle was then launched in 2007 which by 2019 reported close to 90 million e-readers. All designed to provide the ultimate reading experience that physical books seemingly did not satisfy.
As we continue to move towards Digitization, eBooks have been said to provide a wide range of advantages over physical books. These include shareable content, interactive features, cost effectiveness, and the convinience of having your entire library in one device. Despite all of these amazing benefits, has it actually improved the reading experience?
According to a study, it was found that most people have an emotional and sensory attachment to physical books. Scientists have concluded that the stimulation of our senses makes reading physical books a lot more captivating. The smell of a new book can entice us to actually start reading, even if we have an uncompleted book sitting nearby. Flipping through pages creates a natural reading experience in a way that the reader anticipates what’s next, not to mention being able to gauge when your book is coming to an end might actually motivate you to finish it.
Apart from stimulating benefits, studies have also shown that many people claim to retain more information while reading physical books, as they are easily distracted with eBooks. Not only that, the level of eye strain is less frequent and there is no need to ensure a power source is readily available to avoid disconnection.
While there are persons that prefer eBooks, due to its convenience and cost effectiveness, it seems that those who read for leisure are willing to pay for the comfort that physical books offer. Physical books holds fractions of us on their pages, the scribbles, dog ears and creases that we leave reminds us of who we were, and how we felt. The textures and scents take us back to the moment when we first read it. They give a human experience, like us they too age as the yellowing of their pages can carry their stories through generations, out living most of us. Despite all the efforts to digitize this experience, I believe book lovers would always yearn for the intimacy they get with physical books.
Is it therefore safe to say that print is here to stay?
Sources
https://scitechconnect.elsevier.com/why-humans-prefer-print-books/