A few months ago a friend decided she didn’t like reading on her Kobo and she gave it to me. The timing was perfect. I had just returned from a 5-week trip on which I’d run out of reading material. Though I have been staunchly resistant to reading on a screen, I saw that, for traveling purposes, it has its advantages.
There is something charming about my little Kobo. It slides easily into my purse. It can potentially contain dozens of weightless books—maybe hundreds, I don’t really know. And I can read those books in public without anyone knowing what I’m reading.
I immediately put the Kobo to use and read five or six books on a trip to Lopez Island. It’s portability was superb, and I was pleased to find it made reading in bright sunlight possible. I wondered why I had resisted this kind of reading for so long.
The differences between paper and electronic reading have been extensively studied and written about. The studies seem to conclude that digital reading encourages browsing for key words and a kind of non-linear reading in which the eyes dart about the page. It usually leads to worse recall and lower comprehension, perhaps because it activates the “biliterate” brain instead of the one we use for deep reading. I was not thinking about these things during my vacation reading. I was not worried about developing lazy reading habits or that my test scores would plummet.
But I was noticing other things. Each book I finished came to a very abrupt, almost jarring end. I wasn’t prepared for it, and the lack of preparation made me feel as if the book wasn’t properly concluded. I have never (well, rarely) had that experience when reading on paper. With a physical book you see the pages diminishing and know the ending is on its way, and in sensing that, you align yourself more closely with the author’s overall plan.
The more I read on my Kobo, the more frustrated I became with the inability to turn back to an earlier section. The paging forward and backward is slow and somewhat inaccurate (suddenly moving past more pages than you intend), and I knew it would be both time-consuming and confusing. Furthermore, without page numbers, I had no assurance I would be able to return to where I’d left off. With a physical book I often remember the exact positioning on the page of something that has interested me. I see it in my mind’s eye. But with this Kobo, the mind’s eye has nothing with which to ground itself.
I began to feel confined by the small screen of the Kobo, almost claustrophobic. I even found myself forgetting the title of the book I was reading, something that has never happened to me with a physical book.
Because my father was a book designer, I have always appreciated the role a book’s design plays in the reading experience. The way the color of the cover and the cover art convey something about the atmosphere of the book’s contents. Inside the book, the layout on the page, the typography, the transitions from section to section, become part of the book’s overall sensibility. These design contributions are absent in an electronic book. As are the pleasing weight and scent of a physical book. These may be subtleties, but they are part of the overall satisfactions of reading.
What ultimately scares me most about my Kobo is that it has a will of its own. The screen sometimes turns more pages than I want and sometimes highlights things I have no intention of highlighting. It is as if another consciousness is present as I am reading, trying to mediate the experience. And indeed, isn’t that true? Any electronic device we use for reading and writing is entangled with the consciousness of the person who has programmed that device. The programmers of the Kobo and Kindle and Nook have ideas about how to enhance the reading experience for the general public. I would prefer to read without interference from them. I don’t require their clever ideas. Isn’t one of the most satisfying aspects of reading the fact that it is a private, non-mediated adventure?
I will keep my Kobo, and I will be pleased to have it available for reading when I travel, but now more than ever I am devoted to the deep, private, sensual experience of reading a physical book.
Image credit: WickedVT via VisualHunt / CC BY-NC-ND
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