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No, the Internet Has Not Killed the Printed Book - Most People Still Prefer Them (nytimes.com)
Daniel Victor, writing for The New York Times: Even with Facebook, Netflix and other digital distractions increasingly vying for time, Americans' appetite for reading books -- the ones you actually hold in your hands -- has not slowed in recent years (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternate source), according to a study by the Pew Research Center. Sixty-five percent of adults in the United States said they had read a printed book in the past year, the same percentage that said so in 2012. When you add in ebooks and audiobooks, the number that said they had read a book in printed or electronic format in the past 12 months rose to 73 percent, compared with 74 percent in 2012. Twenty-eight percent said they had opted for an ebook in the past year, while 14 percent said they had listened to an audiobook. Lee Rainie, the director of internet, science and technology research for Pew Research, said the study demonstrated the staying power of physical books. "I think if you looked back a decade ago, certainly five or six years ago when ebooks were taking off, there were folks who thought the days of the printed book were numbered, and it's just not so in our data," he said. The 28 percent who said they had read an ebook in the past year has remained relatively steady in the past two years, but the way they are consuming ebooks is changing.
Form-factor. Form-factor. Form-factor.
Books are still around because we understand and have crafted them to exist in a particular, easy to transport, easy to trade form factor. Mass printed books have been around for almost 600 years at this point. We have thoroughly explored the technology.
Electronic format, on the other hand, has not been as thoroughly explored. It's still finding itself. There's going to be a good while before everyone becomes happy with it. Until such time, the printed book is not going to be replaced.
Displays are my main problem. You simply can't read on a screen as easily as on real paper. As for e-paper screens: they are nice in theory, but there are almost no books available outside of piracy or DRM restricted places which add spyware to your device.
I have about 40-50 books on knindle and nook, but I used my price fixing settlement to buy a real books.
lose != loose
I can't get a kindle book from a friend, read it, then pass it on to another friend.
I can't shop around a used kindle book store.
You can't display kindle books, which is an aesthetic that many people love in a home, a shelf full of interesting books.
Ebooks are a more convenient form of something, not a replacement for the thing. It's a portable version of real thing, not a new real thing.
you don't have to keep it charged. I tried doing the whole ebook thing, but how often I (don't) read, when I wanted to finally sit down to read something I realized I had to charge my bloody nook, so I leave it to charge, resulting in me forgetting and not reading.
as a stand for my laptop to watch netflix on.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Although I still buy printed books, I am buying and using audio books most. I can listen to a book while I'm doing other things, listen to them in the car or watching the game on tv ( I rarely have the sound on anyway.) I just wish I didn't have to put up with iTunes to do it.
Sixty-five percent of adults in the United States said they had read a printed book in the past year, the same percentage that said so in 2012
That's a terrible question. Considering that most people who bother to read books even when they're not being forced to generally read much much more than one book per year, it's not really giving a very accurate picture. I got my first e-reader in 2012, and have hundreds of ebooks in my library now (all of them read). Despite all of that, I can still say I've read at least one physical book per year. It's just that the percentage of my reading done on physical books has dropped from 100% to 1%.
Usually the ebooks cost roughly the same as the paperback. In that case, I'd rather own a physical object.
Interesting study, but it begs the question of what happened to bookstores? Most communities have seen a huge contraction in brick and mortar bookstores.
The most common explanation is that many people buy from Amazon rather than go to a bookstore.
So the general conclusion may be that physical books are far from dead, but physical bookstores could be another matter.
Here on O`ahu, we're down to one Barnes and Noble and one independent bookseller, plus a few of those "Book-off" mini-stores that have some used books.
I own a kindle and it's collecting dust. I've purchased like 5 or so technical kindle books (math and programming). Equations typically can't be scaled or don't display properly. Code examples are formatted so badly they are impossible to read. I originally bought my kindle thinking I could read research papers. Hah! Good luck. Try to read an IEEE two column format research paper on the kindle. Most ebook formats are just as bad. O'Reilly books had the right idea to use pdf's.
"I love this paperless society - I've never been busier"
Headline:
A person, who read one paper book in 2016, but 10 such books in 2012 would not make a difference to the cited survey. And, of course, there is no evidence as to what people's preference is — are we reading paper-books, because we prefer it, or for other reasons?
My family brought a substantial library with us, when we immigrated. Our bookcases hold the cherished old friends.
But I would not expect my children to share the sentimental attachment. Because I myself would not be persuaded to go to bed with a papyrus or a box of clay tablets.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I made the transition to e-books in the late '90s, starting with a huge download from Project Gutenberg onto my Palm Pilot. These days I almost entirely read books on an electronic device; for the most part, I find it far more convenient than hard-copy. It's usually lighter, easier to carry around (just slip it in the pocket!), the book stays open to the page you want whenever you put it down, and I can carry an entire library with me. The latter is extremely useful since I can finish a good book in just a few hours. I used to carry three books in my bag just to make sure I had enough reading material; now it's just the phone, which I have to carry around anyway.
Having said that, electronic books are best enjoyed if you are going to access the material linearly; that is, you start at page one and progress page by page to the end, as with most novels. I've yet to find any device or software that makes reading an eBook where you are going to bounce back and forth between pages or chapters - which is pretty much any reference book - anything but a grueling chore. Anything with multiple columns also requires a larger screen (phablet minimum, tablet preferred), whereas novels can be read on smaller devices. Regardless of the type of book, I've never found the addition of multimedia or hyperlinked information particularly welcome either.
When it comes to eBooks, I consider myself an outlier; nonetheless, I've converted a number of friends to eBooks, including an elderly literature professor who once swore vehemently against the new format but now reluctantly agrees there are some advantages and regularly reads on his android phone. Almost all of them still read hard-copy, but increasingly they look for the digital version first. Surprisingly, I've found more success converting older people than young, possibly because the lighter weight - and the ability to increase the font-size - are welcome additions for their age bracket.
For page-turners, I prefer paper.
For reference books and other books I rarely use but may need at any time, I prefer electronic.
Some books are both: I'll read a novel, technical manual, or other page-turner on paper, then go back and use the electronic version (or a Google book search) to refresh my memory later.
When space is at a premium, such as on airplanes, I almost always use electronic versions.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
There is just something amazing about holding a physical book compared to a ebook reader. I think it has to do with there being so much information today, that having a limited amount is actually satisfying.
Kindle for entertainment, dead trees for business. Either for textbooks or anything technical paper is the way to go. You can get paper dirty and wet and not have to worry about it not working, but if I'm on the toilet or on the train I prefer to use my Kindle (not for wiping).
Reason enough to cheer this development.
(oh for the people that will leap to nuclear war, think coronal mass ejection)
I amassed a huge library of dead trees. They were a storage problem, and a real pain when it was time to move. Then I discovered Project Gutenberg. Goodbye, Harvard Classics.
Bookshelves are clutter. They don't look good, IMO.
e-readers have adjustable font size.
Glad I don't have to read books with a large magnifier like my parents did
I still have my paper books but its hard to read them
1. There's the Web.
2. For everything else, I'm working on a program to store notes and links in a very relational database, almost like an editable hypertext. I think of it as my extended mind.
I read a lot, both on the kindle E-reader, the paper white is nice, and paperbacks, but I have several family members that read paperbacks only and we share them about freely. While on Amazon I can get a used paperback for $.01 regularly plus 3.99 shipping the kindle versions are almost always the same or more expensive as a new paperback. The kindle version doesn't smell right and in the end I can't donate it to charity or sell it back to the half priced book house in town. Just like the promise of digital music downloads, the much hyped cost savings never really materialized for the end users, just a cut in production cost for the publishers resulting in more profit. I doubt if the author's even see any of it.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I always order hard copies.
So do I, if it is a book I want to read from cover to cover. But I am much more likely to buy it used, and when I am done reading it, instead of putting it on my bookshelf, I sell it back to Amazon for someone else to buy. I never buy reference books anymore, since it is much easier to look up information online. A decade ago, an entire wall in my office was covered with bookshelves full of books. Today, 90% of them have gone to Amazon, eBay, or Goodwill.
I was a long-time believer in printed books, but I was comparing them to computers, tablets and phones. In this case, books are indeed superior for reasons I'm sure others will point out. But now I'm convinced that when e-ink exits its current patent-encumbered status, large swaths of the current paper publishing industry will die. Not all, but lots.
Earlier this year I got a cheap e-ink ebook reader from Kobo for my birthday. I read a book on it to make the giver (my wife) happy, thinking it would go in the junk pile with all the other gadgets my family gives me shortly after. But it's totally changed my reading habits.
For starters, for reading novels the form factor is awesome; I can stash it in the breast pocket of my suit and whip it out on the subway. I never loose my place. it's even easier on my eyes than paper because I can adjust the font size. It save me tons of money; I tend to read older stuff (first half of the 20th century) and the choice of *free* books is absolutely mind-boggling. For more recent stuff, the ebook piracy scene is not so bad, especially in the English-language market. Battery life has not been a concern _at_all_; I read at least two hours a day and it lasts for 3-4 weeks.
I don't think e-ink will supplant paper books entirely; there are whole classes of books that it doesn't really work for. Things that need maps suck on an ebook reader (historical, fantasy); manuals are much better on paper; obviously things that require high-fidelity printing are best in books. But it's going to kill the paper novel sooner or later.
"A book in the past year"? And this measures "enthusiasm" for books of any kind?
Hilarious.
People who buy a book a year are not those who drive the market for books. Period.
Furthermore, I've read (reluctantly) printed books in the past year, the main reason for which is because there was no electronic version of that particular volume.
These people are counting teeth to see how many toes there are.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I think this is simply because e-book formats are immature. There's no technical reason an e-book / reader combo couldn't present you with fabulous, full color maps and illustrations, plus links to more, etc. It's just that the current formats are crippled, and also, that some conversions from print to e are done, really, really poorly. B&W readers could do very nice, multiple mode conversions to B&W. High resolution of on-off displays allows for dithering tech that is really quite formidable. This is an area I am very familiar with.
So when I open a book and the images will not scale, don't re-flow with the text, and lack detail -- I don't blame e-books as a "thing." I blame the nascent-ness, if you will, of the tech. I fully expect it to improve. It already has to some extent, and we're only a few years in.
Like anything new and really different, there is always resistance, and progress; resistance will always lose in the face of superior tech, and that's definitely something we can apply to e-books. Far, far superior in concept. Flawed only in execution. But the latter can change, will change, and in fact, is already changing.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I do wonder if there's some percentage of the population which won't consider e-books simply because of the cost of the initial outlay for the device? While technically you can read on your phone, even the phablets have rather small screens from that perspective... so for comfortable reading you're looking at buying an e-reader of some sort (e.g. Kindle) or a tablet.
On a side note... here on Slashdot, I have sworn many times I would never, ever spend large amounts of money to upgrade my old third-generation dog-chewed Kindle Keyboard. But, alas, on the most recent Prime Day the lure of the Voyage was too strong. Between the Prime Day discount, and buying a refurbished unit, the cost came down by about 40 percent... and I bit. I have to say it's a really nice device - having a built-in light is great, and the haptic "buttons" work pretty darn well. But I'm sorry, guys, I was weak... I didn't hold the line I swore to hold.
#DeleteChrome
I thought I would hate the kindle both for it's form factor and because I have a sort of photographic memory for page layouts when recalling information in text books. Since I don't read textbooks often anymore--most things are now searchable on the internet, what I found was the convenience of the kindle in being able to take a lot of books on travel, even pick them up at the airport, and also to make the fonts larger are killer reasons it's better than print. I personally use it to the exclusion of books for all new books. I still buy used books because the price is better.
What kills me about the kindle is two things. One is when I read great book the first thing I want to do is give it to a friend. And you can't. The second thing is you can't put it on your trophy shelf. I like looking at the books I've loved on my shelf as they recall bits of the story I liked at a glance. It tells others about me in a way I want to tell, and it's lets you pick one out and give it to a friend.
So I love books and hate the kindle, except that it's a far better tool than a book. It's just that books are more than tools, they have identities and you want to share them.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
That's your scary headline.
I love having .pdf files lying around that I can print out. For ebooks, when I can be bothered, I have a script on my Linux box (and rotate the screen 90 degrees for the form factor) to xdotool key Right, sleep 1, screenshot, sleep 1, repeat, then magick it together into a pdf. Not brilliant, but with enough resolution you can get something worth printing out and reading (approx. 180 dpi).
John_Chalisque
Well, I've tried eBooks and switched back to paper for novels and any other casual reading. Hard to explain why, it just feels more comfortable.
What a narrow minded and presumptious statement to post. Maybe you should just read then you might not be posting such generalising idiocy as you have.
You can use the Kindle like a generic reader and do lots of management outside of Amazon. I've got ebooks from many sources (Project Gutenberg being a big one) loaded on my Kindle, no problem. And even Amazon sells some books without DRM. Probably not from any of the big publishers, but it's an option when you self-publish - I've done it myself with my books. I almost never do a direct purchase to Kindle from Amazon, though sometimes I'll push a sample or free ebook from there.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
Where do you get your e-books from?