The book full stop
Recently it is rekindled un debate that seemed dormant, after ebooks in the last four years had started to become part of the daily habits of readers in many countries, especially in the USA and the UK. The unexpected slowdown of ebook , recovery of muscle tone book, which manifested itself strongly in the last quarter of 2014, has given a laugh force al book party which seemed destined to the same fate that befell the English Liberal Party after the First World War.
The Book Party is back to amplifying its mantra: a book is read on a book made of printed pages, because other things are done on a screen, especially if it is connected to the Internet. The more liberal wing of this party admits i Kindle, e-reader of course, with a rather loose and sporadic Internet connection. If you have to read a text, learn something or store of notions, not there is alternative al book. It is for this reason that the ebook not they will be what the files were mp3 is preferably used for music and its industry. The ebook they will be the “series B” of the authors or, at best, a format supporting actor, suitable for certain types di content, For a reading hasty and superficial, but not training of character and preparatory to career. These belong to the book.
The book, even digital natives say so
A recent one survey di Nielsen added grist to the book's "fan club" mill. The investigation found that i young till a 25 years they prefer study and consume long form content on books rather than ebooks. Also on ebookextra we are occupied with this investigation which establishes a real paradox: precisely i consumers keener than digital content, when it comes to read something that takes more than an hour, yes they address to the letter and in this case to a book. Does this choice even mean something? How does the ebook party respond?
The answer came from one of the book industry's six most influential people who belongs to the team that invented the ebook. Russ Grandinetti, Amazon's Kindle project manager, said the book is one of technologies more resilient of history. And it is. What technology invented in the XNUMXth century is still around? If Gutenberg returned, he would still recognize his invention. The Mac is the evolution of his printing press. Mike Shatzkin, an early adopter of the ebook, said “we have achieved a point di resistance natural: there are people who prefer to read on paper, even if it is cheaper, faster and easier to do it on a device”.
There are many and even fanciful theses about the irreplaceability of the book and its meaning in people's lives. Among the many we offer you this reflection, balanced and effective, of David L. Ulin, literary critic of the "Los Angeles Times", author of the book The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time released in 2010 by Random House. At the beginning of 2015 Ulin returned to the subject again, pointing out effectively his point of view. Below we offer, to ebookextra readers, the translation into Italian of his speech entitled Reading in the material world in the Los Angeles newspaper.
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Reading on paper and on video: two different experiences
If you are a digital immigrant like me, there is something deeply satisfying about reading these words from S. Rosenwald in the Washington Post: “the millennials they prefer by far the reading of a book for pastime or study, a preference that has surprised experts given that the same demographic group has the inclination to consume the majority of content in digital format”.
Le reasons: the quiet, lack di distractions, concentration and the belief that the the memory is based, among other things, on physicality.
So nothing new.
I don't want to mislead anyone: I declare that I have a conflict of interest on this matter. I do not have May thought that reading a video lesson would supplanted la Press: improved yes, increased audience yes, made books more widely available yes. For me, however, there are two left experiences very different, the first concerns the selection ofinformation , the second concerns thedeepening andimmersione.
Screen: out of text; paper: inside the text
When I read a screen I always have one eye elsewhereabout what is happening outside twigs text – email, internet, social media. I take a break, I check Facebook, I resist, somehow, at the pressure of the narration.
On the page, though, I indulge completely. I usually read in bed in a room with no electronic equipment; not I want to be disturbed. THE'technology, therefore, is a factor essential, be that described laid down by the narration, both that of the place where does the reading. I don't want the experience to be interrupted, I want to find and lose myself.
Rosenwald's piece traces a series of similar intentions. Cite a study by Pew Center who found that “the most high percentage di readers It is among the 18 and 29 years and the same age group uses le libraries public funtains in large numbers". He also quotes a student approving of printed paper with these words: "It lasts me longer because I read more carefully."
What the card allows is one reflective reading, which makes sense like reaction to the culture di simulation constant e response continues. How can we think if we are always busy talking, tweeting, surfing, looking around for reactions or excerpts of information rather than more integrated and meditated opinions?
La reading, on the other hand, is or can be a process slow, dialogue a conversazione; the involvement that's the point.
Inhabiting a universe that is not ours
Some of the most intense moments ofinspiration were aroused laid down by the reading – moments that demanded mine total attention, my concentration It's mine passion. I think Nick Carraway in the Great Gatsby, to Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty in On the road, to Pip in Big hopes, Underground memories by Dostoevsky. I think of James Baldwin and his anger over his father's death in My father must have been beautiful or to Lorrie Moore in the story Referentials where he describes a mother's morbid love for her afflicted son.
I'm not saying it can't happen with an e-book, but the reading reminds us of a world, a universe beyond us in which we live il landscape of an imagination that is not la our.
La page printed stimulates this process for his physicality; the book it's a object that we need to open and discover page after page within a percorso that you don't know where it leads. The screen, on the other hand, is much more reassuring towards our sensations, our external memories: how many photos do you have on your smartphone?
What I mean is that on a device like an iPad or an iPhone, not we lose never of view ourselves; it is a personalized environment, extension of our personality – yet the printed book exists in a different realm. It requires an external commitment, an adaptation, where otherness is part of the thing.
I say this not to say that there is no enchantment in the digital way, with his speed, Its connectivitysimply is not always what we when let's read.
This is why I feel encouraged by the concept explained by Don Kilburn of the Pearson school publisher in Rosenwald of the “Washington Post”: “the digital revolution doesn't look like a revolution so far. It looks more like an evolution that goes on and on”.
