Digital Reading: The Kindle (encore)

I know I've already discussed the Kindle Question to some degree, but I thought I would review what I had said earlier and update my thoughts, as I've been spending a little more time with it now. 

Well, first off, the Kindle will never replace books, at least for me. There is something very fundamental about a book, something solid and basic and trustworthy. I don't know; that might sound silly, but the problem is that with a Kindle (I'll say Kindle, but of course I mean any digital reading device), you only have the words; no smell (which I love; if they ever make a car freshener that smells of old libraries, I will SO buy it!), no physical contact, no ink even. And each time you open the "book" or text on the Kindle, everything shifts, so the same words aren't even on the same page anymore (there are actually no page numbers because of this: very strange! how can you read a book without page numbers???).

Another thing is that when you read on a Kindle, it's hard to lose yourself in the story as you lose yourself in a book. You know, of course, what I mean. It's when you suddenly look up from a book and realize that for the past -- well, whatever amount of time it was, you're not really sure -- for the past while, you've been in another world and another time, and now you're pulled back into the reality of homework and roommate troubles and matchmaking crises and everything you could possibly imagine. With the Kindle, it's not impossible to reach that level of concentration, but it's much more difficult, especially with noisy distractions. If I'm sitting by myself in my room, with no one else around, I can sometimes get there, but as soon as someone else walks into the room, I've lost it, and it takes a long time to get it back. 

As for its influence on human thought and the life we lead today: I don't know. I honestly think the Kindle is the least of our worries in this age of Facebook and online dating and all sorts of nonsense, not to mention all the other sorts of inherently evil stuff you get online. Like any tool, the Kindle can be either used or abused; it is a wonderful thing to have when traveling around, or somewhere where you can't carry thirty books with you! It's also nice to be able to download something that you're not sure you want to pay full price for -- a lot of digital books are either free or only a few dollars, so if there is something you are interested in, but not sure you want to keep or want to pay full price for, you can just download it to the Kindle, read or skim through it there, and then decide whether you want to buy a hardcopy or not, or just leave it on the Kindle, or even delete it (if it were that terrible). 

But like I said, as with any tool, you can use or abuse it. Technology is quickly taking over our lives, but if we use it well and carefully and with moderation, it can be a wonderful thing. I think the issue with the Kindle vs. the Book is not so much a micro-issue, as a macro-issue: our entire way of life is taking on a revolutionary change. The Kindle is just one aspect of this. Of course, the Book issue is a huge deal and a very poignant example of what is happening in society, but we have to remember that in its time, the Book itself was an issue and a novelty. When Gutenberg introduced moveable type into the printing process, society was inundated with these things called books, and a lot of people didn't know what to do with them. People didn't know how to read, for one thing; they were also afraid that the written word would take over the oral tradition, and so for a long time people read aloud, even to themselves. It's funny when we think about it, but I think it's sort of the situation we have now; people are afraid that computers will take over the world and we'll stop reading. I think it's probably true that people will read less from physical books, but the moral consequences of that are up to us :) So, the tools are only as good as those who use them, in my opinion.

And a lot of these pensees, if you will (thanks, Dr. S., for the inspiration ;) come from Sven Birkerts's fantastic book The Gutenberg Elegies, in which he addresses this very issue. If you get a chance, I would highly recommend it; it's an easy though thoughtful read, well written and well expressed, with a lot of thought-provoking ideas and a good balance between "the world is falling apart because of our lack of books" and "the world is going to be so much better if we all embrace technology." He also addresses the issue of authors in the age of modern publishing and modern audiences, which, as a writer wannabe, fires synapses in at least my brain on that issue as well. Hmmmmm ... maybe I should get an IT degree ....