9 years ago
8
Young readers prefer printed books
A new book called Words Onscreen: The Fate of Reading in a Digital World cites surveys that say that young readers increasingly prefer to read books from paper, not screens. More than that, though, they find ebooks and printed books complementary. Printed books are good for protracted reading and comprehension. Ebooks are good for subsequent reference and convenient access. I started arguing this in 2008, and it certainly reflects my own experience.
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I'm only a sample size of 1, but I rarely read until I got a kindle. Maybe 1 book a year. Now I'm reading about 15-20 novels a year and 1-2 non-fiction books a year. My kindle has made books way more accessible and easy to carry around. And read in the dark.
I've been a reader since second grade.Not sure how many books I read every year,but it's a lot...I don't have a kindle.
I was an avid reader all the way up until high school. In elementary school I broke our school's Book It (Pizza Hut) record for my age group several times. Once readings started to be assigned, I kinda stubbornly stopped reading altogether. My literature teacher was obsessed with stuff that I'm not interested in (Shakespeare mostly) and it just completely turned me off from reading for fun.
That's such a shame. I mainly read to learn and for fun. I can drop out of reality in a book and reemerge and be shocked it's like 3am in-the morning.
That's something I learned about recently. Apparently most people have a 'mind's eye' and visualize a book as they are reading it. When I read a book, all I see is words. I am still able to enjoy the story, but I don't get any visualizations out of it. I'm one of those weird people who wants to see the movie before the book so that I can remember scenes while I'm reading since I can't make the scenes for myself.
I thought everyone did this! I don't see the words, I see images. For me,the book is better than the media 99% of the time,but there are exceptions,such as True Blood being better than the books. Given a choice between the book vs the movie, I go for the book first every time and generally skip movies and shows based on said books since they never live up to what's in my head when I read.
For me,reading a book is like I'm actually there, in the world the writer is describing. It's 3d and in color, like watching a movie in my head. The same goes to listening to an audio book. You might want to try audio books and see if you can dive into the writer's world, like this series.
http://podiobooks.com/series/a-traders-tale-from-the-golden-age-of-the-solar-clipper/
Science fiction is especially fun to read, since, I feel I am on other worlds,conversing with aliens,etc. Yeah,it's fun. As I near the end of a good book or series,I'll slow down how much I'm reading at a time to make it last longer and I always feel a whisk of sadness when I'm done.
Needless to say,I love to read.
I understand that is how most people read (to some extent). I have tried to do it myself, but even though I do have quite an active imagination, my IMAGination doesn't work in IMAGes the way you would expect. I can't visualize myself as being somewhere else. I can't visualize somewhere I've never been. I can (in a limited way) recall places I have been and seen, whether they are photos or videos or actual memory, but I can't create new images, sounds, smells, whatever; and I can't modify what I've seen. If you told me that someone looks like a mix between Britney Spears and Katy Perry, I can kinda (not vividly) picture Britney Spears and I can kinda picture Katy Perry, but my brain can't combine the two images. However, if one person told me that someone looks like a mix between Britney Spears and Katy Perry, then another person tells me that Jessica Simpson looks like a mix between Britney Spears and Katy Perry, I could picture the person you are describing as Jessica Simpson.
It's hard to explain, and I don't try very often, but it is basically the same for sounds, smells, tastes, etc. When I'm reading I see words, and I read the words out loud in my head. If I've seen the movie already, and the scene is written pretty closely to the movie, I can remember the movie scene while I'm reading. However, it is not in place of the words in my head, it is in addition to the words in my head.
It's also similar when I'm thinking. If I'm thinking about something, I'm not seeing anything. I'm just talking to myself in my head. When my wife and I are walking around in our yard and she tells me her plans for the garden, and says "we could put a cherry tree here and petunias here..." I'm not seeing what she's seeing, even though I know what a cherry tree looks like, I know what a petunia looks like, and I know what my garden area looks like. I can't put them together like that.
Books have that smell and touch that ebooks can't compare to. That's my top reason.