02/04/10

The Modern Reader

I have been following the entire iPad brouhaha very closely, reading up on pre-launch reviews and now the first reviews that are rolling in from different quarters, curious and keen to see how and more precisely if this would change reading habits.

Looking back at the history of technology, every time a new technology was announced, people dismissed it saying nobody would ever use it. Take for instance, the reaction in the beginning of the 19th century of teachers vis-à-vis the introduction of paper in classrooms where slates were used previously.

Students today depend on paper too much. They don’t know how to write on a slate without getting chalk dust all over themselves. They can’t clean a slate properly. What will they do when they run out of paper?

Or the way teachers reacted to the use of calculators for mathematics:

We can’t let them use calculators in middle school. If we do, they’ll forget how to do long division or how to multiply three digit numbers by three digit numbers. What will they do when they don’t have access to a calculator?

With every new technology, there was resistance and as time went by the “new” technology was no longer new or avant-garde. Instead it moved on to become common and before its detractors knew it, it was a necessity. It happened with paper, it happened with calculators, it happened with the PC, Internet, Cellphones…will it happen with e-reading devices?

Can e-reading devices, be it Apple’s iPad, Amazon’s Kindle or any other similar device that will be launched in the coming year replace traditional reading material? Will books be passé by 2020? I can see them replacing laptops, especially in American Universities and B-schools where students are already accustomed to using digitalised course material. But will they penetrate the larger market? Will the generation Y be going to be bed with a e-reading device on which the latest novels and reviews have been downloaded instead of a honest-to-goodness book or magazine?

I am not so sure…

PS Follow the argument here

PPS Check out this hilarious review by Stephen Colbert review by Stephen Colbert

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