I have been pleased to see that eBooks are finally settling into society as the new normal—I am seeing them on the bus and subway almost daily (not just tablets, but e-ink devices) and almost everyone I talk to has one, at least within their household or extended family. It’s just so funny to me the way some people use them…
Exhibit A: The Book Fiend
I have a co-worker who is a book fiend; you would think the Kindle would be perfect for her, right? So why is she carting around a giant hardback novel every day in her backpack—along with the Kindle?
“I like to have two books with me all the time,” she tells me. That way, if I finish one, I have something else to read.”
I explained to her that she could have more than one book on the Kindle. She understood that. But she felt like she had to always have a paper backup too just in case…
Exhibit B: The Segregator
This person didn’t know that it was possible to sync amongst devices. She she had all the short story collections on the Kindle app in her phone for reading on the bus, all the series books on her iPad for reading at lunch and all the stand-alone novels on her e-ink Kindle for reading on vacation.
Even after I explained the cross-device synchronization, she still was not convinced and continued to segregate out the short stories onto a separate device so she could read them when she wanted to…
One of the appeals of ebooks, to me, is having all of them with me every time I want them. I feel like now that I am in, I am IN. I would never carry around a hardback with me to supplement my ereader, or wait to read a book I wanted until I had a certain device with me. But to each their own, I guess!
I agree…especially with your second point.
A few years ago I carried my Kindle everywhere, never leaving home without it and loved the fact that my entire unread library fit in my purse. Today, I only take my Kindle when I know I’m going to have lots of down time. For short peeks, I know I can whip out my phone and read for a few minutes. It means one less thing to carry when I’m running errands and I still avoid suffering from the chronic reader anxiety of finding myself in a long line without a book to read.
Just as one size doesn’t fit all books, one device doesn’t fit all reading uses. I have a Kindle keyboard for reading most books, but I also carry a Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ which I prefer for cookbooks and technical books with lots of graphics as well as pdf’s of electronic schematics where it outshines even paper printouts because I can easily zoom in to complex areas that would need a magnifying glass to read on paper.
I don’t read on my smart phone due to the small screen and it’s poor performance in bright lighting conditions. The Kindle keyboard is my constant companion for reading and also has several lists in text format such as my grocery shopping list, quite handy.
In 1993, according to research I saw then from the Photo Marketing Association, the average number of 35mm film cameras in a U.S. household was six. That’s what is happening now with computers/tablets/phones, which are of course the new cameras, GPS, Walkmen, etc. all in one.
I’m a segregator. Long form fiction to e-ink reader, short form fiction to phone and non-fiction to tablet.
I’m not sure what a book fiend is concerned about. I haven’t read fiction in paper since early 2009 and I have no desire to ever to return to that format. I’d just use my phone and/or tablet as back up for the two days it would take a replacement e-ink reader to be delivered.
This will all fade when we “read” via cranial implants that draw content from the cloud. Just think of the book and it appears in a selectable UI, HUD or various “themes” with optional aural backgrounds.
I still read paperbound books about 30% of the time. I do tend to segregate fiction to the Paperwhite and non-fiction to Fire. The Fire is good for exploring rabbit holes discovered while reading — for example, a Van Gough biography had me visiting many art sites. Some fiction goes to the Fire if it has text or ideas to explore — lots of foreign language quotes, for example, to look up.
A nix on iPhone reading except very short articles or emails.