eReaders - A Disruptive Technology

Blogger’s Block – it is real and it is a terrible thing. 

So this week when I sat down and researched emerging technologies that appealed to me, I came up empty. It seemed all my favorite web sites were filled with stories about the cheaper tablet market, or the latest eReader wars. I already wrote about the new line of Kindle eReader, but what I didn’t write about was the disruptive side of this technology.

Growing up, my family didn’t have much. While we didn’t exactly sit around and watch a bug light for entertainment, we did have books to read. I love books. Always have. What helped build this admiration was my living near a library.

On days when I’d finished my chores early, I was on my way to the library for a day of mysteries and thrillers and even some of the scarier books I wasn’t supposed to be reading. Shaking off the weather from outside, I’d walk along the rows of ceiling-high shelves and play a game of alphabet roulette. Do I start with N or maybe B? Sometimes I’d cheat and browse through the cart of returned books.

Some of my favorite memories are of afternoons spent gathering a new collection of books. Part ritual. Part compulsion. I’d stack them on the table to my left then tear through with my fingers, consuming the pages before stacking the finished reads on my right.

There is magic in the way a book draws you in and evaporates the reality that is life around you. With the turn of a page and the read of a few sentences, you’re in a world someone dreamed up – just for you. The touch of the raised letters on your fingers and the smell of the paper as you turn the pages are the only things to remind you of where you are. I miss that.

I write stories. They’re in my head whether I want them there or not. A dream has always been to see one of my stories published, printed then shelved at a bookstore waiting for someone to pick it up. The likelihood of this ever happening is becoming less and less as reading habits move to books online and in downloadable digital form.

An eReader has a lot of benefits. With the latest connected Kindle Cloud, I can now carry with me the library I used to visit. Granted, it still only takes a sentence or two to pull me into the world the author put together for me. But while the reading experience is almost the same, the book experience is gone. Completely gone.

Going online to purchase one of the latest novels brings with it a certain amount of anticipation – but it is nothing like the excitement of running your hand over the cover of a new book before quickly turning to the first pages.

The Borders bookstores are gone. Libraries from coast to coast are shutting down. The classics have been digitized and made available for free to anyone with a computer or eReader. Some types of text will always be in book form – but the novel, in traditional form, is slowly disappearing.