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Unitasking vs. multitasking: Kindle-lover paid for ‘lack of distraction’
June 29, 2009 | 1:36 am
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By David Rothman
Many Kindle fans celebrate their ability to focus on books and articles.
They don’t want the distractions of a sophisticated Web browser or decent e-mail program.
For the latest articulation of this viewpoint, check out a PaidContent post headlined The Real Genius of The Kindle? The Return of ‘Unitasking’—by SmartMoney’s Tom Weber:
Over a few weeks, I rediscovered my ability to simply read the book or article I had punched up in the first place. (Just like—gasp!—old-fashioned printed matter.) It’s particularly enjoyable when reading a newspaper or magazine—enough so that I’ve been routinely purchasing some of these publications when I could have grabbed my laptop and read them for free on the web. In effect, I’m paying for the lack of distraction.
Here’s my take. There’s no right way. Depends on you and your lifestyle and the way nature wired your brain. Another factor? The kind of book or other publication. A novel won’t send me to the Web as often as nonfiction does.
For my own purposes, my Sony PRS-505 is great for home use. But elsewhere, I usually prefer the convenience of my iPod Touch, which fits nicely in my pocket and offers multiple functions.
I also enjoy my my Acer netbook, with which I can easily look up book-related sites.
Your own thoughts?
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Comments:
An electronic book reader without a built-in full-fledged color internet browser is sharply limited in my opinion. Unitasking can be a mental straitjacket. It is sometimes desirable to interrupt the reading of an ebook to obtain more background information.
Consider the classic science fiction novel “The Space Merchants” by Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth. The authors present a satirical world in which advertising agencies wield enormous power. When the protagonist visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art he finds a “big, late-period Maidenform – number thirty-five in the catalogue: “I Dreamed I Was Ice-Fishing in My Maidenform Bra”"
A reader unfamiliar with this famous campaign of the 1950s and 1960s could use a browser to read about it in Wikipedia and view exemplar color reproductions such as “I dreamed I went to blazes in my Maidenform bra” and “I dreamed I went to a masquerade in my Maidenform bra” that were probably titillating to some viewers in the 1950s. The authors invented the frigid ice-fishing context to highlight the absurdity of the partial clothing, and to mock the elevation of commercial kitsch to “Art” status. Since Andy Warhol’s canvases of Campbell Soup cans are now in the collection of the Modern Museum of Art the humor has an additional ironic twist for contemporary readers.
In the novel the Metropolitan Museum of Art also has a prominently displayed bust of G. Washington Hill. A browser search reveals that George Washington Hill was a marketing prodigy credited with the dubious accomplishment of convincing more women to smoke with catchphrases such as “Reach for a Lucky Instead of a Sweet.” The novel contains references to other people such as Albert Fish and Gilles de Rais whose fame and infamy are unknown to some readers. A quick internet exploration is enlightening.
Thus ready access to a browser can enrich the ebook reading experience. The Kindle does allow access to Wikipedia and the internet, but it is unable to display color images. Also the browser is somewhat primitive and awkward.
The dedicated book readers are too limited! I use a Palm TX to read books connect to the internet, play games, work, calendar, etc. The form factor of the Palm lets me carry it everywhere as it fits in my pocket, and with the multiplicity of readers it works with most file types, I have six different readers installed. I can carry many books and games. At home I read books or use my notebook to read.
I love reading ebooks on my Sony PRS-500, in part, because there are no distractions. Having an internet browser built in to an ebook reading device would ruin me for reading. I get easily distracted. That’s just the way my brain is wired.
I love my Kindle, browser and all. I don’t miss color; books of large colorful pictures are not really my thing. I just got an iPod touch (and promptly put Stanza on it, and have read Treasure Island and half of Sense and Sensibility), and I agree it’s much easier to carry around, and fine for short form reading when my eyes are reasonably rested, and the battery is fresh.
But for long form reading, give me the Kindle.
(Shrug) Different tools for different jobs.