E-Books Make Readers Less Isolated

by: Austin Considine

VOLUMES have been written about technology’s ability to connect people. But burying one’s nose in a book has always been somewhat isolating — with its unspoken assertion that the reader does not want to be disturbed. So what about a device that occupies the evolving intersection between?

“Strangers constantly ask about it,” Michael Hughes, a communications associate at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, said of his iPad, which he uses to read a mix of novels and nonfiction. “It’s almost like having a new baby.” An iPad owner for four months, Mr. Hughes said people were much more likely to approach him now than when he toted a book. “People approach me and ask to see it, to touch it, how much I like it,” he said. “That rarely happens with dead-tree books.”

With the price of e-readers coming down, sales of the flyweight devices are rising. Last month, Amazon reported that so far this year, Kindle sales had tripled over last year’s. When Amazon cut Kindle’s price in June to $189 from $259, over the next month Amazon sold 180 e-books for every 100 hardcovers.

Social mores surrounding the act of reading alone in public may be changing along with increased popularity. Suddenly, the lone, unapproachable reader at the corner table seems less alone. Given that some e-readers can display books while connecting online, there’s a chance the erstwhile bookworm is already plugged into a conversation somewhere, said Paul Levinson, professor of communication and media studies at Fordham University.

“I think, historically, there has been a stigma attached to the bookworm, and that actually came from the not-untrue notion that, if you were reading, you weren’t socializing with other people,” Dr. Levinson said. “But the e-reader changes that also because e-readers are intrinsically connected to bigger systems.” For many, e-readers are today’s must-have accessory, eroding old notions of what being bookish might have meant. “Buying literature has become cool again,” he said.

Debra Jaliman, a dermatologist in Manhattan, said that she believed technology like her iPad, which she uses to read everything from newspapers to novels, had helped banish social stigmas about reading alone in public.

“There may once have been a slight stigma about people reading alone, but I think that it no longer exists because of the advancement of our current technology,” she said. “We are in a high-tech era and the sleekness and portability of the iPad erases any negative notions or stigmas associated with reading alone.”

Not everyone agrees that e-readers have made the people reading them more approachable. In fact, the opposite may be true in some cases. Jenny Block, a Dallas-based writer and sex columnist, said that she thought her Kindle was a stronger pre-emptive rebuff than a book. “I think the Kindle sends the imperative ‘I’m busy, please don’t disturb me’ message when you are traveling on a plane or eating in a restaurant or relaxing at a resort,” she said, adding that the last book she read on her Kindle was “Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality.”

“And that’s a good thing,” she said of the Kindle’s imperative. “It says, ‘I’m used to doing this, don’t pity me.’ ”

From: NYTimes