By Edward Nawotka, Editor-in-Chief
Visitors test e-reading devices at the Frankfurt Book Fair (Photo © Frankfurt Book Fair)
“Now there is the Internet, social networks, YouTube, messaging, mp3s, video, and so on. We in fact read more, but we read more posts, articles, and comments — not books. A book as a vessel of condensed thought and knowledge must now compete with Wikipedia and articles on popular blogs. Really, Russians read less: now 35% of adult Russians don’t read books at all. In 1996 only 20% of adult Russians didn’t read books. But digital books can and do reverse this trend: 48% of readers of digital books do not read less, and 42% of them actually read more than before. It’s not very strange: if you’ve bought a book reader or iPad for reading you’ll read more.”
Statistically speaking, it makes sense. Anecdotally, readers reiterate that owning an e-reader means they buy more books, a theory supported by e-booksellers. And last year, the Oren Michaels, CEO of Mashery, asserted in these pages:
“In fact, the average American reads over 35,000 words a day (the equivalent of roughly one third of an average novel). As a whole, our consumption of the written word has increased from 26% of our daily dose of information in 1960 to over 36% in 2008 — the increase largely accounted for by digital reading.”
What do you think? Does digital publishing really encourage more reading? Fact or fiction?
2 Comments
Yes definitely. Since I got a Kindle 3 years ago in Australia, I read 3-5x as many fiction books, mainly because of the price variation, but now because of the ease of consumption on the Kindle. I also read blogs and other things on my smart phone and computer, but it’s the fiction I notice the most. I LOVE downloading samples of books I am interested in, and 99% of the time I won’t buy unless the book is available electronically. So yes, digital encourages more reading, not less – although the cheaper prices for many ebooks means the amount of money made may not reflect this.
Fact and Fiction. Yes I think people may read more on iPads or other things like that, but it is a different kind of reading that may not nessisarrily be all good. I think people should stick to the paper books and read off of those.