Friday, July 15, 2016

Books


I like books. I like their smell. I like the feel of the pages as I turn them one by one. I like the identifying covers, the titles on the spines, and the fact that I can picture that book in my mind’s eye, knowing where it sits on the shelf (and after I have read it, what it is about).

Those things are hard to replace by e-books…

On the other hand, the fact that they don’t take up space in the book case is definitely a point in favor of a more modern perspective on reading. As well as the possibility of a multi-media experience where the pictures clarifying the text can come to life as the video stream is accessed.

Ultimately, its about the content of the book. Whether it is an old fashioned page-turner, or a more modern e-book; whether it is a roman, a detective, a thriller that we may enjoy as relaxation, or a book on a topic we want to learn more about, that really doesn’t matter.

And when thinking content, books can give us a context.
Of course we can find any and all information online, but more often than not, when we search for it online we tend to find little tidbits of information without the broader view. In other words, we find the answer to our question, while a book may also answers those questions we hadn’t even thought of…

Yet, both paperbacks and e-books seem to give way, slowly but surely, to video’s.
We want to read less and less. At 38 pages in an hour reading takes a lot more time than finding a video that tells us what we want to know in 10 minutes. (And plain information video’s need to be even shorter.) And when we do want to full content, there are ‘spoken books’ and podcasts that we can listen to for easy access.

From a sensory perspective, it means that we are starting to rely more on what we are hearing than on what we are seeing. It may not be a lack of awareness, as it is a different awareness. An awareness that brings sound more to the foreground. An awareness that, when raised, can let us hear ~ and even feel ~ things that for the casual listener aren’t there.

And just like we can block the light ~ and to a certain extend what we see ~ with sunglasses, we can block the sound with ‘earbuds’, controlling precisely what we are hearing…

Almost like discerning which book to read at any given time…
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