Thursday, November 29, 2007

WSJ on Kindle and Reading...

If you've visited Amazon.com at all lately, I'm sure you've noticed that they're really pushing Kindle, "Amazon's revolutionary wireless reading devise." (It's $399 with free 2-day shipping by the way.)

Yesterday The Wall Street Journal's columnist Daniel Henninger wrote an op ed piece on Kindle and reading. Scary/sort of surprising fact from the article: "The average 15- to 24-year-old spends seven minutes daily on 'voluntary' reading. " Wow. Seven? Are they voluntarily reading the backs of cereal boxes during breakfast? (It's ten minutes on weekends. A chapter of something?)

I wonder how much time I actually spend on "voluntary" reading. Maybe I should do a journal for a week or two and see. And I guess it depends on how one defines reading (which Henninger's piece discusses). What counts? Books of course. But what about newspapers, magazines and blogs? Is it odd that we need to have a discussion about what constitutes reading?

How much do you read on a daily basis? And would you read from a hand-held electronic devise over a printed book or a magazine? (I didn't think so. Neither would I.)

1 comment:

Terry P. said...

That's a sad statistic, although I admit that as a teen I didn't read anything beyond the required reading for my classes, even though I was an avid reader up until high school. Today, being a children's author, I read constantly, although it's spread over books, blogs (like yours :-), and internet articles. I don't anything will ever replace the feel of a book in hand. Comparing the hand-held device to a real book would be like having a digital image of a mountain scene vs. standing on a mountain peak and breathing in the cool air, feeling the breeze on your face and the sore muscles that got you there. It just isn't the same.