BP24_01112011_E-books: A Fresh Alternative or The Devil's Plaything?

Standing outside in the cold on a dark January evening, my newly-met companion explained the superiority of paper books to an e-book reader: "I like the feel of a book in my hand. I like to smell the paper. I like to turn the pages."

Doesn't sound so quaint when you read it in a technology blog does it? Who are these people? Who is it that sits at home in the dark sniffing their books? Who gets a thrill hearing paper rustle? Ball State University has an idea who they are, based on a series of studies performed by graduate students in the university's school of education.

Those who prefer paper books to e-books are [drum roll]: people with little to no experience with e-books. Research subjects were tested on the speed and accuracy of look-up using an electronic dictionary. Those with the slowest times tended to be Baby Boomers, whose children were among the first to learn and produce using computers, while those with the fastest times tended to be those raised with the contemporary ubiquity of computer screens.

Those of us in the older generations (I am a Gen Xer) have sometimes adapted to the newly invented technologies of the new day, but the younger generations have known the cell phone, the internet, wireless access, online classes, the X-box, Wii, and other platforms as part of life, as things that have "always been there." They are what Marc Prensky accurately called Digital Natives. They speak the e-book language already, since they have already mastered the cell phone and smart phone, texting, e-mail (which is so 1999), social networking, Call of Duty 5, and the netbook.

Now here's the kicker: the Ball State study was completed before 2006. E-readers have made it into popular consumption, by way of the Kindle, the Kobo, the Sony e-Reader, the Nook, and others. Five years ago, we knew that students raised in the digital age were making the transition to e-readers with little difficulty. The past five years have seen the introduction of smart phones, affordable e-readers for consumers, the iPad, and more screens on more devices for young people to look at.

So, really. Go ahead and sniff the leaves between the covers, hold that hardcover in one hand until your elbow gets numb, revel at the sound of paper passing paper. For the rest, we'll carry a library with us at under half a pound, while your fancy hardcovers weigh two pounds per inch of paper.