Also, the human head weights 8 pounds...
Give or take. I do suppose it depends on the person in question. Diameter of skull and bone thickness, and all that. I do know that you have a "smarter brain" if it's more wrinkly. Does that add to overall mass, and thus weight?
Hmm.
It is interesting, though, to consider the different ways people absorb information. Scholarly organizations have to think about this because they try to understand how their customers -- students -- are receiving the product -- education -- that they are paying for. One could argue that certain educational organizations don't do this
enough, but that's a different rant for a different day. But you see various means of delivering said information, based on auditory (sound), visual (sight), and kinesthetic (touch).
Publishing is no different. With the technological age advancing around us, one of the ways publishing in general has had to evolve regards eTechnology -- eBooks, eReaders, ePublishing, eAdvertizing. eTc.
The first way publishing had to handle this strange new form of publishing was to rewrite, literally, the way it handled the basics of publication. There is a whole new form of reading that can be done now on a device that fits in your hand, and from that spirals all sorts of new niches -- design, advertising, layout, sales, rights, overseas rights, production, art, etc. Every aspect of publishing that exists was touched by this new form of delivering the written word.
And something that now has to be considered, as we come down from the first blast into the atmosphere that was the peak of ePublishing, is fine tuning. Now we have the time, the experience, and the energy to consider the little details beyond the bulk of eReading.
One of those details has to do entirely with personal brain activity -- and yet again we find the argument of Ebooks against the physical book. Personal preference does come into it -- I myself don't like eReading because it hurts my eyes, and I love the feel of a book, the smell of a book, and the pure physicality of a book that an eBook just can't match.
However, there is
more to this preference that goes straight to the brain. Julian Baggini writes about this, asking "
Which do our brains prefer? Research is forcing us to rethink how we respond to the written word."
No doubt eReaders have made the
portability of reading far simpler. I used to pack 6-7 books with me when I went on vacation, taking up space in my suitcase and adding a good 10 pounds to whatever I was carrying. I still tend to carry a book in my purse at all times. Yet this has been solved and resolved for many by the presence of an eReader, which allows one to carry around a nearly unlimited amount of books (depending on your storage size) all contained within a small, lightweight platform.
Baggini then begs the question, is the difference between physical book and eBook anything more than the decision between
"cost and convenience?"
She goes on to answer her own question, stating that the answer,
"suggested by numerous studies into the neuroscience and psychology of reading in different formats is an emphatic yes."
EBooks and eReaders have risen in the ranks in the past several years. This sudden burst of interest worried many publishers and book-traditionalists with the "death of the book," the "death of reading," and the "death of publishing." However,
several studies (short-term studies, to be sure, since the innovation is still so new as well) have proven this
not to be the case. If anything, eBooks have promoted reading, especially in the younger generations who respond more easily to technological advancements in the first place. In my own study on this subject I came to the conclusion that eBooks will have negative
and positive affects on reading overall -- and, in the end, will balance out to normalcy. Baggini agrees with this, stating that
"Overall, there doesn't seem to be any convincing evidence that reading on screen or paper is better per se."
Less important is the question of how eBooks are affecting overall reading and when compared with the question of how it is redefining
"what it means to read."
Apparently eBooks have different effects on people when it comes to
deep reading, which is when you lose yourself to a text entirely -- I have a tendency to do this to such a degree that when I finally pull myself from a book, I feel as if I have been asleep all that time. I do not hear or perceive my outward surroundings and have been known to be left behind by a group without even noticing their absence. -- and
active learning, which is when you are engaging with what you are reading by taking notes or looking up words and cross-referencing other texts. For me, this is the difference between reading fiction and non-fiction.
Arguments arise that the distractions of eReaders (with their hyperlinks and their ability to hop on the internet or, in some cases, answer the phone) will take away from
deep reading. But in other cases is facilitates
active learning by putting the wealth of the knowledge on the internet right next to the text at hand. Some forms of eBook are better for
deep reading via eReader because they prevent skipping around to other section of the book easily, whereas with a print book you can merely flip a few pages to see what happens next.
Another study told of how
"electronic devices promoted more deep reading and less active learning" because students, in particular, were more focused on the device than they might on a book, and yet eReaders make rereading more difficult than sticking a finger in at a section you want to go back to and simply flipping back through the pages.
In any case, all of these studies merely collide to prove that individual preference, readability, and learning style have a lot to say about our selection between eBook and print book. Baggini yet again states that
"whatever the case, our habits have probably been created largely as combination of childhood experience and how the medium we read is nudging us." This would explain why the younger generation, which has never known a time without the internet or cell phones or high-speed cross-platform technology, adapts better the the technological form of reading, while those of us who were raised either pre-internet or at the very cusp of the innovations of the internet still prefer having a page or two to dog-ear or the physical heft of a book in our hands.
I still prefer my physical books, and I will continue to do so for the rest of my life. I'll have that suitcase full of hardcovers and that paperback stuffed in my purse. What can I say? I'm a traditional print gal.
What do you do when you feel like you could keep running forever?
I don't know how long this momentum will last. Surely I cannot keep the stories flowing, the energy levels up, and the diligence steady -- all the things it takes to write a single novel, much less two in 18 months, or three in two years. I must hit a wall at some point. I will inevitably need a break, a vacation from words.
