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Health & Fitness

To Kindle or not to Kindle

Yet another new technology has entered my life. I'm not sure it's such a good thing. What do you think?

I’ve spent a lifetime reading.  Books, magazines, fiction, non-fiction, newspapers, blogs, short stories, long stories.  Heavily influenced by older sisters, as a child I read the Little House books and Nancy Drew mysteries—over and over again.  I remember reading A Horse Called Mystery and checking Man O’ War out of the library repeatedly.   In high school, I discovered Stephen King—I will never forget how I felt reading The Shining alone at home one Saturday evening. 

My fascination with reading has continued since.  I always make sure to have something to read if I expect to have free time.  When I fly, I get to the airport ridiculously early.  Why?  So I can stock up on newspapers and magazines at the airport newsstand, find a seat near the gate, and then read and watch life pass in front of me. 

I read.  If there was one thread that has tied my life together from beginning to end it would be that.  I read.  Lying in bed as night falls, or more importantly as my eyelids fall, I hold a book in my hands until I can stay awake no more.

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When e-readers started popping up, I was fascinated by them, but wasn’t sure I’d ever get one, at least as long as the cost was $200 or $300.  I’m not anti-technology, but there are certain things I still like the old-fashioned way.  First thing in the morning, I turn the alarm off and open the front door to get the newspaper.  Those thirty or forty minutes with the paper in my lap are an experience that can’t possibly be replaced.  The idea of figuring out how to read “the paper” online leaves me baffled.

For months, I insisted that I liked the feel of a book too much to buy an e-reader.  It’s not just about the words on the page; it’s the tactile and emotional reward of a book in my hands that is part of reading.  You can’t curl up with a screen, but you can with cheap paperback, a classic hardback or the weekly news magazine.

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And then, I cracked.  A couple of months ago, I purchased a refurbished Kindle 2 for $89.  The cost was finally at a level I could justify, plus I had begun to learn about all of the ways free books are available.  You can check out an e-book from libraries—classics that are beyond their copyright date are free, and other more current books are either free or ridiculously cheap.

There are good things about an e-reader.  I can read without having to hold what I’m reading, just reaching out and push the “next page” button every few seconds.  E-readers are just a part of the explosion of publishing options available to aspiring writers, freeing them from the tyranny of the traditional publishing world.  (As an aspiring but unpublished novelist, I say that with just a hint of frustration.)  My weekly magazines can be delivered to my Kindle instead of in the mail—that oughta be worth a tree or two.  Books and short stories are available at my fingertips.  No trips to book stories or waiting a couple of days for the package to come from Amazon.

But that’s actually the biggest weakness.  It just makes too much too readily available, shortening my attention span and increasing my need for instant gratification.  If I’m reading something on my Kindle and it starts to slow down, I can quickly move to something else.  Before I got my Kindle, I was a one book at a time reader.  Now, I’m in the middle of one hard copy book, am reading another book on my Kindle, and have two other books that I started on my Kindle but left behind in favor of the book I’m reading now. 

That book I’m reading now is fascinating, but I’m only a third of the way through it and I just can’t see myself finishing it.  Why?  Because it seems that a screen has this inherent impact of shortening the attention span.  There’s a line from an old movie about, The Big Chill, about People magazine.  Jeff Goldblum’s character, who writes for People, makes a comment along the lines that any article in the magazine has to be short enough that the average reader can read the entire article while “sitting on the crapper.”

That’s what the screen has always done to me.  Whether it's a desktop computer, a laptop or, now, my Kindle, I find it very difficult to stick with anything of significant length while staring at the screen.  Maybe it’s just me, but I’m not sure of that.  There are plenty of studies and anecdotal reports about how all of the technology available to us has fundamentally altered our brains, changing how we remember things and shortening our attention spans.

The question then, for me, is to Kindle or not to Kindle?  I’m going to give it a few more months and see if what I describe here is just a result of the novelty of a new toy.  I hope that if I’m still doing the same thing—flitting from book to book—at some point, I’ll go back to reading the old-fashioned way.  There is something to be said for holding a book in your hands and reading it to its end, instead of dropping it for the next, hot thing that pulls your attention away.

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