Is The Kindle Changing What We Read?

Much has been said of devices like the Kindle changing how we get our books. However, apart from the publicity given to independently published books (in which there has been much hype), little has been said about how they might change the kinds of books we read.

In my experience reading off of a Kindle is far better than reading off a computer screen - but still less comfortable than reading off of paper. The result is that I find myself prone to read on a Kindle for shorter periods than when reading printed books (anything more than half an hour and I start noticing the difference), and to avoid it entirely on a day when I used my computer heavily. Additionally, the small number of words the screen accommodates compared with the printed page means that anyone scanning a long stretch of text has to go through many more screens than they would pages if they were using a printed edition - which along with the quirkiness of electronic touch screens, makes moving about even an extensively hyperlinked Kindle file rather more awkward than leafing through a printed book. Not unrelated, but arguably more important, is the evidence that what psychologists and neuroscientists have long argued about reading done off screens as compared with paper - that one retains less and digests it less fully - seems to carry over to e-book readers like the Kindle.

All of this suggests that e-books are best suited to easy, comparatively undemanding readings, books which can be finished in small bites, which do not require close reading and the activities associated with it - backtracking, rereading and so forth. Of course, there is nothing wrong with a high level of readability as such - but many books which make greater demands on the reader do so for good reason, like the complexity of their subject matter.

It may be that for those sorts of reads, printed books will remain preferable, at least without advances in the technology that further narrow the gap between the two experiences. However, there is an alternative concern, especially given the ofttimes mindless boosterism for new technologies like e-book readers, and the admitted convenience of the devices - that to the extent that the selection and editing of books for publication becomes dependent on their suitability as e-books, denser, more complex or otherwise more demanding books will have an even harder time making it through the gauntlet that is the publishing process.