High-tech 1. High-touch 0
The last 4 novels I’ve read have been consumed on my iPad. The experience of purchasing from amazon and downloading to the Kindle app has been easy and I’ve paid one third the price I’d pay for the print equivalent. I like reading on screen, I like being able to control the backlighting and text size and I’m confident it’s increased the speed of my reading. So, no complaints from me about the consumer experience of reading eBooks, but I’ve been thinking a little about what they don’t allow and I think it’s the social connection to the high-touch world.
Reading, until this high-tech age, has been high-touch. Thumbing through novels, newspapers and magazines transferred the ink to your hands and the sensation of the material to your brain. In exchange you contributed greasy finger prints, coffee stains and other even less savoury things to the pages you read. Now, many will be pleased at the demise of this exchange and the screen of your Kindle can get just as grotty as a printed tome but the role of books as keepers of the records of their own physical interaction is passing.
The notes you left in the margin of the university text book you used were read by others. They read your words, interpreted your handwriting and wondered if the marks on the following page were blood stains and if the blood was yours?
On my daily bus commute I like reading the readers of print material. I observe the jackets of their books: inventing the backstory for the 45 year old business man who reads the second book in a trilogy that features trolls and quests. I like that the jacket of the print book you read announces something of your personality – kind of like a mini billboard that introduces you to the rest of the world.
Who knows what the readers of Kindles are reading? They can share their thoughts on what they’re reading via any number of digital channels but you’ll never see their handwriting or wonder at what on earth they were eating/drinking/doing that left THAT stain. You’ll keep your hands clean but by limiting a books ability to transfer it’s texture, ink and smell can it possibly have as great an impression on you?
