Saturday, June 13, 2009

Books: the perfect technology

After having the Kindle for about a year, Tim Challies explains why books are the perfect technology:
...I came to see that all of the things that frustrated me about the Kindle were things that made it not like a book. It's book-like qualities were it's best qualities; it's non-book-like qualities were the ones that got to me. All of the things that annoyed me were the things that made the experience more like operating a computer and less like reading a book. Pages took too long to turn; I could not splash yellow highlighter on the pages; I could not skim through the book looking quickly for a word or phrase or note; I could not scrawl notes in the margins. Sure, there were a few advantages--the notes I did take (saved in a text file on the Kindle) could be exported to my computer simply by plugging in a USB cable; books were less expensive and instantly added to my collection; hundreds of classics were available for free. But overall, the Kindle experience paled in comparison to the happy, familiar, comforting experience of sitting down with a book. Everything I wanted the Kindle to do, a book could do better.
I don't own a Kindle and I think this pretty much sums up why I doubt I'll ever prefer electronic reading to book reading.

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous9:46 PM

    though he chooses books for reasons such as "there's just nothing like the way you can write notes in the margins" and "I can flip to quotes," what of the kids whose parents get them the Kindle now? they don't have memories to go back to. the foundation of hours of book reading and the comfort of turning pages won't be there for the coming generation- i don't feel at least.

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