
In defense of real books - Tomte
https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/15/17039010/amazon-kindle-oasis-2017-vs-real-paper-books-versus-lauren-goode
======
MilnerRoute
I believe our brains have a slightly different relationship to text on a page,
because that page always has one specific location in the physical world. It
will always be the same text, and on that same piece of paper. (Do you ever
pick up a book and surprise yourself by remembering _exactly_ where you left
off -- that last sentence of the first paragraph at the top of the page on the
right?) I think we're always subconsciously assessing where things are in
relation to our current position, and that carries over to text on a page.

But there's not the same permanence for text in an ebook. (Poof, it's gone!
New text! There is no page, nothing has a location...) And yeah, sometimes
that same "view port" can turn into an ad. Sometimes it's your book, sometimes
it's Amazon selling you something.

I just truly believe that you end up with a subtly different relationship to
that body of text that you're trying to read and remember.

------
thanatropism
I skip pages, start in the middle of books, track back, have two or three
books open at once sometimes. I haven't found an electronic interface that
accomodates my nonlinear style of consuming books. They just tell me I'm
reading them wrong.

~~~
MilnerRoute
Yeah, even simple things like "See Figure 4" can become a big hassle in
ebooks. (Is that on the next page? The page after?) And what you really want
to do is re-read the text and then quickly look back at the figure -- which is
just always going to be much easier when you're flipping back and forth
between two pages that you're holding with your fingers.

Maps is the other big thing. Reading a book about the Lewis and Clark
expedition (or the Astoria fur-trading party), there's always one big map
showing the entire route of the expedition, and you'll want to refer back to
it several chapters later. Yes, you can still try to bookmark it in an ebook
-- but accessing it is something like "Menu / My Bookmarks and Notes / Page
forward, page forward, page forward, page forward...."

------
valeg
>Those kinds of notifications don’t pop up on Kindles, either, so that’s not
to say that Kindles contribute to our distraction problems. Kindles are also
wonderful for making books and all kinds of text immediately accessible to
people, a digital consolidation of that stack of books sitting on your
nightstand.

That's why I absolutely love this thing. I have the cheapest and simplest
model, hope that Amazon won't put some stupid messaging service suddenly there
after update. Paper books are great also. Doesn't discharge. The best thing
for deep learning session.

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otakucode
I certainly think a much better defense of "real" books can (and perhaps
should) be made. I was a bit disappointed to notice that this article didn't
mention what I personally find an important difference: You own a book. You
can never own an ebook. They're not for sale. The best you can ever do is
throw some money in the direction of a publisher and wish really hard that
they honor the utterly non-binding vapid 'license agreement' which extends
literally no rights to you as a consumer and places literally no obligation on
them as a seller.

Sure eventually the courts will step in and declare digital property to be as
real as any other form of property, and we'll see actual ownership rights
return... but that might take a long time. Until then, you can give a book to
a friend either as a loan or a present. You can buy used books. You can sell
your books. You can always pick them up and read them. With ebooks, you cannot
sell or even give them away. You can't loan them. You can't even be assured
that you'll be able to pick them up and read them. You "agreed" to license
that can be revoked at any time for any or no reason.

Ebooks are a vague wish and an act of faith in the publishers and nothing
more. Someone will eventually push it too far. And only then will consumer
rights be restored by the courts, but that could take ages and isn't even
guaranteed. Sure that's the way it worked with every single other industry
that has tried this exactly identical "licenses not ownership" game, but
things change...

~~~
kwhitefoot
Of course you can 'own' an ebook. Unfortunately this means that you often have
to commit an act of 'piracy' by defeating the DRM to extract the file from
your reader.

As for the courts stepping in, be careful what you wish for because the only
way to have 'owning' an ebook work the same way as owning a physical book is
for there to be unbreakable DRM and/or draconian penalties for breaking it
together with a register of who has the right to read it at any given moment
and a list of legally allowed devices that it can be read on.

No thanks.

~~~
otakucode
I don't understand how you make that leap. Physical books can be copied or
stolen. We are still allowed to own and buy and sell them without any
unbreakable system to track their ownership, or a register of who has the
right to read the book at any given time, or anything of the sort.

~~~
kwhitefoot
Ownership in that sense is contingent on there being a physical object that is
expensive to reproduce. The only way of mimicking that for ebooks is DRM.

------
pasbesoin
One of the articles that came out apparently around the time of the publishing
of "The Myth of the Paperless Office". I recall reading one or more of the
articles, back then, and finding sense in them. I never read the book; if I
learned of it, back then, I'd forgotten about it.

I don't know whether this is the best of the articles. I seem to recall a
longer one. And, this one comes with a "Gladwell" (the author of the article)
caution.

"The Social Life of Paper"

[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/03/25/the-social-
lif...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/03/25/the-social-life-of-
paper)

"The Myth of the Paperless Office"

[https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/myth-paperless-
office](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/myth-paperless-office)

------
z_open
``Real'' books are an environmental nightmare. One e-reader can save countless
trees.

~~~
MilnerRoute
Maybe. I'm not sure I'd call old books an "environmental nightmare." (They're
made of paper, so in theory they can just be recycled -- or at least degrade
back into natural elements?)

Meanwhile, the electronic parts in old Kindles have a bit of an environmental
impact too -- and are probably harder to get recycled.

