Bought my wife a kindle a while ago. She loves it, and so do I. She used to buy a lot of books, but honestly, we've saved a lot of money since she got that kindle. There are lots of free books (usually classics), and a LOT of books for under ten bucks. New books are cheaper, too. Finally, you can get subscriptions to magazines like Newsweek on her Kindle for much cheaper than the physical magazine. Like people have said, it is hard to find a specific place, but that is something that hasn't really affected my wife in her reading. The main reason I haven't gotten my own kindle is because I read a lot of graphic novels, and those don't translate as well (or at all, really) to e-readers, so it seems kind of pointless when 75% of the books I buy are graphic novels that aren't available on the kindle. The fact is, publishing companies are going to want to move to e-books, too. Think about the cost of publishing a regular book versus an e-book. There is really no cost to publisher to publish an e-book. Even at 5 to 10 bucks a download, the vast, vast majority of that is profit. One of the projects I've done in my teacher-prep program was analyze the potential for e-readers in the classroom. Overall, I found that they'd cut down on book costs, and reduce clutter for students. No more carrying 40 pound backpacks, when they can just have a kindle or other e-reader that would be lighter and easier to carry, not to mention have every single book a kid needs right there and organized for them. In addition, there is the novelty of using e-readers over actual books in attempting to get kids to read. Lets face it: kids hate books. Give them some gadget or technology, though? They'll eat that up real quick. Obviously, I don't expect all kids to jump into reading because of e-readers, but I think more kids are willing to read books on an e-reader than are willing to pick up a regular paperback. Finally, regular books need to be replaced regularly. English classes will teach classic literature, a lot of which can be downloaded for free on the Kindle. No more wear and tear on paperback books. Plus tell the kids that they (or their parents) are responsible for replacing their e-readers if they get damaged, and kids (and parents) will be much more likely to take care of them. A good e-reader and e-book (academic) can use the table of contents to jump straight to different chapters, as well as use the glossary and index to skip straight to different pages and subjects. They also have the ability to highlight phrases, which can help with studying. The problem is I don't know which e-readers and e-books do this. One day, they all will, but until then I know there are some that don't.
I'm really curious about this; rather than a Kindle, why not just read books on your laptop? The same free classics on Kindle are even easier to access at ProjectGutenberg. Those "cheaper" books are free online. You can navigate, change font, and change other settings quicker. So why buy an extra, expensive electronic contraption? Off-topic, but why do people insist on calling them "graphic novels"? They're comics, and a totally separate medium from books. In fact, comics are a media somewhere between movies and books, with elements of each one. Problems I see with this argument; 1. Most kids might hate books, but they're not stupid. Put a fancy jacket on a book, and they won't be fooled. Switch a paperback or hardcover for an e-reader, and they won't be fooled, either. 2. When I'm using a math or science text and I need to quickly access different parts of the book, I much prefer a physical copy to my online version, as it's much quicker and easier to do so. Ditto for English. This will significantly slow down classes when everyone jumps from page 51, paragraph 2, to page 145, paragraph 4. 3. Why do you assume schools want to cut down costs on their textbooks? Have you ever asked yourself why US elementary, middle, and high schools have giant, bulky, hardcover textbooks that cost $70+ instead of smaller, more manageable paperbacks that cost $15, like virtually all the schools in Asia and Europe do? And why private universities, on the contrary, have far more of these manageable paperbacks for their classes, even though students have to buy the books, not the school? It's because like any public institution getting lots of cash (last I checked, $14,000 per student per year), they want their "assets" to be as expensive as possible, especially when the taxpayers are footing the bill. 4. Nowadays, I can stare at my laptop monitor for an entire day, and it's fine. When I was 8-16 years old, staring at a computer screen for a couple of hours would badly hurt my eyes and give me a minor headache. I doubt I was a special snowflake; many of my adult friends have the same problem NOW, let alone adolescents. 5. I'm curious where you get the idea that textbooks get so easily damaged and stolen. Granted, I grew up in a decent neighborhood, but most of the hardcover monsters lived a good 20+ years if they stayed with the same text. In a 35 person class, it was unusual if more than one textbook was missing at the end of a year, and if so, the student's parents would be billed. 5b) You want to guess how long the e-readers are going to last, and how many will be stolen? The answer is a whole hell of a lot more.
Because Kindles have specially engineered screens and use e-ink instead of pixels, and the contrast is different and is much easier on the eyes.
I can't help but see the value of any art as being somewhat influenced by the way that art is accessed. And by "way," I mean everything from how you carry/transport it, to how you store it, all the way to how difficult the actual text/music/piece is to "get." I think the ease with with music is accessed and experience has harmed the art monumentally. Go back to the depth of most popular music when vinyl was the easiest means of getting that music, and compare that to the depth of popular music when cd's were the easiest means, and now compare the depth of popular music now that ipods are the easiest means. As it's gotten easier/more convenient, the amount of attention demanded to understand and truly enjoy it has lessened correlatively. Yes, this doesn't cover everything, just on a popular scale. Can we look at literature in the same way? Further, have mass book emporiums (Borders, etc.) and the internet already provided the context for a decline in literary depth that we can measure at all? Will it get worse with the Kindle? "Books going from paper to digital will not threaten the existence of literature any more than going from hand-written books to the printing press did." - KIMaster. I'd just like to mention, though, that I don't think you can really compare the two. Rather, start from the Victorian age where full societal literacy really started, and compare from then to today. Before that, you are only dealing with a privileged audience of readers, and that gets way too tough to compare. I don't know really, just throwing something out there that I have thought about a little bit.
I think one of the allures of a Kindle is that it's more convenient to carry than a laptop. It fits into a purse. My mom is a pretty big reader, and when she travels she usually brings at least 3 or 4 books to read on flights/in airports/winding down in a hotel, etc. Not a huge deal, but carrying a Kindle is much less cumbersome than carrying several books or a laptop. I don't think this change in technology will completely eliminate books. Book lovers will always want their hardback copies of favorites.
A lot of the reasons for getting the kindle have been mentioned already. Easy to read, smaller than a laptop, and easier on the eyes. She occasionally reads on her laptop or her iPhone, but those both bug her to read for extended periods. The kindle is just easier on her. Finally, as said in the post earlier, it is just easier to carry. My wife throws hers in her purse and has it pretty much everywhere she goes. She also has the kindle app on her iPhone so she can read her books there, too. Next, I call them graphic novels because I see a difference in as much as I buy trade paperbacks more than the actual comics. I've always looked at it as "comics" are the actual issues that come out every week, whereas "graphic novels" are the trade paperbacks that collect all the issues into one book. It is really just a semantics thing, and I usually just tell people I read 'comics' because it is easier and I have no qualms about my reading habits. Finally, your numbered arguments: 1) Some kids won't necessarily want to read, I agree. However, some will. Technology is the kind of thing kids gravitate towards. They are willing to sit and read/text on phones, and I've seen them read fairly long articles on phones. It won't fool them, but the novelty of technology will make them more willing to play around with it and use it a bit. That is more than they'd do with a basic paperback. 2) Math will likely still need regular text books, unfortunately. This was one thing admittedly I didn't think of. Science is debatable. On the one hand, biology might still be able to be on an e-reader, as there aren't a lot of math formulas to look up. Chemistry, though, will probably have to be in a regular text book. 3) I can't really speak to this as I don't run schools. I can say that schools in my area (and probably all over) are in a huge financial crunch right now. Common sense dictates that they'd want to cut corners in any way possible. Paying 125 for a kindle and then another 75 to buy all the books, rather than paying 500 for all the books per kid, just seems like a smart move to me. Why they don't, I can't say. Corrupt bureaucrats, wouldn't surprise me. 4) Kindles don't have the same screen as laptops. They're much easier to read, because they use an e-ink display. 5) I've worked in some pretty shitty schools. I've seen the kids use incredibly old books, books missing covers, and books missing pages. Some schools don't have this issue, but the three schools I've worked at certainly have. 5b) That is why you tell students and parents that they're responsible for their e-books, and also get insurance on them. Yeah, some will be stolen, but my thinking was always that the kids would own them. Every kid is given an e-reader in, say, 6th grade (when they start middle school) and it is theirs to keep after they finish school. It is theirs, not the schools, but they need it FOR school. If they lose or damage their e-reader, it is their responsibility to either get a new one or purchase the books without the e-reader. By giving the e-reader to the students, it puts the responsibility for them on the kids and their parents. I know it isn't a perfect situation or solution, but in terms of costs, overall, I think it would end up benefiting the schools to switch to e-readers as their primary source of books. Not their ONLY source (as I said, math books would be much better in actual book form), but a source that would benefit the schools financially.
Interesting. I had no idea that e-readers used e-ink instead of pixels. I've read up on the technology now, but I'm curious to see what it looks like in real life. I still don't understand the size or vacation arguments, though; some laptops are now so tiny they can be held like a large book, and when on vacation, one would think that bringing along the laptop would be a good idea anyways, making the Kindle unnecessary. I disagree. Kids care about the content, not the fancy packaging. Even if you sucker a few of them into briefly reading, once the novelty wears off, they will look at an e-reader no differently than they do a paperback. What distinction are you making between math and the other sciences? The symbolic notation? That's a trivial component that most e-reader programs already possess. What I wrote was something entirely different, though. Namely, that flipping back and forth through different pages is much quicker and easier with a physical book than it is an e-reader, and there is no way to change this. You're losing out a lot on ease of access. If the school district is so poor, can you really require parents to pay $125 for an e-reader? Hmmm...does this mean that the school will have to buy new e-reader texts for each new class? That is, when the old one graduates, will they be able to pass on their $15 digital books, or will the school will have to buy new ones? If it's the latter, then it will end up being more expensive than the old $80 hardcover monsters unless all texts are changed within 1-5 years. Also, if saving money is such a concern, I think you can do much better. For starters, buy a small hardcover or decent paperback for $20-$40 that will hold up just as long, is easier to carry, and costs less. Or, do what my university did; make a deal with the publisher, and print out entire books for the class from the school's printer, or post them online on a password-protected site affiliated with the school. All of that would be much simpler than buying a Kindle, but there's a reason it only happens in colleges. Namely, giant hardcover monsters with large, blank margins on all sides (seriously, check it out) are big business, especially when the taxpayer is taking care of the bill.
It is entirely possible for schools and school corporations (or state governments for that matter) to make deals with publishers to make e-books and e-readers cheaper. They can make a deal to get the books for so many years and unlimited downloads for their e-readers. Then they have to buy new batches of e-readers every year for the students. Most students already pay a book rental fee when they sign up for school (back when I went it was something like $80 to $100 at our school district... who knows what it is now). Instead of books, they pay for a new e-reader, and it is a one-time fee rather than a recurring, yearly fee. Seems cheaper to me. As for my distinction for science books, it is pretty simple. Some e-readers have a search function where they can search a book for a word or phrase. That could actually eliminate flipping through pages, as you can just search for a term. For example, if you have to look up "cell structure" in a biology e-textbook, you can just search "cell structure." Saves you from flipping through the chapter looking for the bolded word or phrase you might need. Finally, as to why prefer a kindle to a laptop, there are multiple reasons: 1) Easier to read. E-ink and all. This has been covered. 2) You brought up that some laptops are small, but at the same time, how much does a netbook cost? A couple hundred? A 3G kindle is $179. A kindle that is wi-fi only is only $139, so it is much cheaper than your average laptop/netbook, also. If someone doesn't already own a laptop, why go out and purchase one for the sole purpose of reading books, when you can buy a kindle for a few hundred bucks less. For that matter, if they do own a laptop that is fairly big (mine, for example, is about 6 lbs and a widescreen laptop), lugging this thing all over just to read would be a pain. I take it to school and home, that's it. I can't take my laptop with me to the doctor to read while in the waiting room. 3) A kindle weighs less than a pound (less than many of the books it replaces), and is smaller compared to any laptop or netbook you put it up against. It holds 3,500 books, and the battery life can run up to a month without a recharge. My wife uses hers a few hours a day, and has charged it twice since she's owned it (for about 2 months now). A netbook, meanwhile, can run a few hours at best, on a single charge, so you're constantly worried about plugging in or staying plugged in. 4) Laptops require scrolling to read books. The kindle has buttons on the sides to turn pages. This is silly and trivial, but it can make reading easier. 5) When you own a kindle, you can access your books in a lot of locations. iPhone, droid, PC, mac... you can download apps to see your books almost anywhere. Truth be told, it is clear that you prefer laptops, and I really don't think I (or anyone) can change your mind on that, so this is all kind of a moot argument. Like the arguments about PC versus Mac or PS3 versus Xbox360, at the end of the day, it is a matter of personal preference. You've gotten used to using your laptop, and that is fine. The reasons listed are why my wife likes to use her kindle. We just find it much more convenient.
The fuck kind of universities have you been going to? Many university level text books will run you over $100. Also, e-readers like the Kindle can be used on the subway, while waiting at the doctor's office, etc. It's hard to imagine laptops being similarly physically manageable.
And some of the ones I had cost as much as $200. My point wasn't about price, but about the size and nature of these books. Many were paperbacks, and others were small hardcovers. Smaller, lighter, more manageable. How much they cost was purely a function of how rare or limited the stock was (a good example is a new copy of the Berkeley physics courses), but in terms of production, they were not the giant, bulky, heavy hardcovers I knew so well from elementary to high school. On the mass-produced, less technical, high school level, such texts are mostly in the $20-$40 price range. And if you've never had a professor simply hand out the course text in 300 pages straight from the printer, with a giant paper clip, you are missing out. Very convenient. I think all e-readers have a search function, but the point is, it takes about 20-30 seconds to do what you described above, and the reader loses his/her previous place. Meanwhile, with the physical book, I can have one finger on each of three different pages, and access each part instantly, compare the parts, etc. This is a big deal when you're studying for an exam or trying to finish some problems faster, as I can attest to from personal experience. Anyways, you have made a decent case for e-readers for private use, but again, I doubt it's much of an advantage in a school setting.
When I first read the title of the thread I thought the argument was going to be newspapers, magazines, ect... I was stunned to see the book stores are suffering. The Barnes and Noble by my house is always packed, obviously that doesn't mean a thing it just lends to my surprise. I guess I'm old fashioned but I find satisfaction is a full bookshelf, I also hope my son will be able to read all the books I have collected and enjoyed over the years. Kindle seems brilliant to me, it seems best for college students. Buying books was one of the most miserable things about school, working your ass off to try and have a pot to piss in and then having to spend $400 on books made many students angry. Although I find it intriguing I will probably stick to books, again I'm old fashioned and if it's not broke why fix it? I don't want to sound naive but couldn't the current state of the economy be the problem for these mega chains? It seems to be affecting everything else negatively why not Barnes and Noble?
Call me cynical, but I highly doubt a $200 textbook is going to drop by any significant amount for e-books. Professors and universities supplement their income from book sales, and the high costs have little to nothing to do with demand or the tangible costs of a physical book. Granted they'll drop slightly in price in e-book format to appease the masses, but nothing significant.
I love to read and have been reading from an early age. I am notorious for walking and reading at the same time and have a practiced lefthanded bookholding technique that allows me to easily do so or to read while on the subway while my right hand holds a railing, for example. All that said, I am seriously contemplating the Kindle. Screen glare is probably my biggest reason not to read books on a computer and the Kindle solves that. I suspect I'll need to get used to it and it may take a generation or two of improvement to it for me to truly be comfortable in some unknown way, but in the end, I think I'll be a primarily e-reader. And as technology improves and Kindles have a dual mode where you switch from e-ink to normal screen in order to use its laptop/ipad/telephone like functions, it'll be even more certain.
How many of you said you had no need for an mp3 player? CDs are great. *Raises hand* How many of you said you had no need for a smart phone? What about a smart phone that also functioned as an mp3 player? In the beginning I thought all these things were retarded and I had no need for it. Now I can't imagine my life without a smart phone that plays music. I havent bought a cd in 3 or 4 years that wasnt a digital download. If history tells us anything, unless you are that weird guy with a record collection playing nothing but them, you will have an ereader and you will enjoy it.