My Love-Hate Relationship with eReaders
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I am a self-professed bibliophile. As a kid, I would feign sickness to stay home from school in order to finish a good book (thank you Christopher Pike for all the wonderful days). I have bookshelves brimming with bound volumes of the written word. In my possession, there are books on science, language, travel, every genre of fiction, biographies, history, graphic novels, children’s picture books (mine, not my son’s), comic collections. Well, you get the point. I love books. So when my husband brought home an eReader, I was resistant to its charms, but slowly, it won me over. A little anyhow. I still have my reservations about eBooks.
What I love about eReaders:
The Embedded Dictionary
Back in the olden days, running across an unknown word required sifting through an actual dictionary made of paper, usually containing nearly a thousand pages. If you were a hardcore word nerd, you may have had a multi-volume collection like the Funk & Wagnalls, two volume set I grew up with (and which still sit on my shelves). I actually used to read these for fun. The digital age has replaced the carrying of print dictionaries around. Now all we have to do it use our smart phones, tablets, or laptop to look an unknown word up via the internet. Even better still, most eReaders have a built-in dictionary that is activated by simply tapping the word. This is possibly my favorite feature of eReaders. Having the embedded dictionary is incredibly handy and makes readers much more likely to look up words they don’t know.
Their Lightweight
I recently had to deal with a very painful bout of tendentious in my right thumb known as de Quervain’s tendonitis or “mommy’s thumb,” and holding heavy, clumsy books aggravated it to no end. Our eReader allowed me to read without excruciating pain.
Lots of Books in one Compact Place
The idea of carrying a small library of about twenty to thirty books everywhere without having to lug around several suitcases is a dream come true. Now when I’m traveling, I can take several books with me at once without having to negotiate with my suitcase where I’m going to keep them all. This is especially handy when reading a series, and you don’t want to wait until you land to continue your obsession with Katniss and the rebel alliance.
Instant Gratification
Much like buying a book from a mortar and brick establishment, with eBooks you can download and read immediately. No more waiting for books to arrive in the post.
Fewer Trees Die
Besides making moving house easier (no more packing up several boxes of heavy book), you can now rest easy knowing that more trees are being pardoned from the fate of being ground into pulp for our fiction needs.
Adjustable Font Size
Some hefty books have itty bitty type font, and can strain the eyes. This issue is easily adjusted by an eReader.
My eReader Gripes
Book Signings
Seeing your favorite author speak, and then queuing up with other excited fans to have said author sign your battered and well loved copy of their work, is the perfect Saturday night for a book nerd. You can have an author sign an eReader, but that would just be silly.
Borrowing and Lending Becomes a Hassle
You just finished a book you loved, and all you want to do it loan or gift it to someone you think will love it as much as you. However, it’s an eBook. There is no loaning or gifting unless you jump through some hoops. You can’t leave it behind in the airport, coffee shop, or trade it at a take-a-book-leave-a-book area for others to enjoy.
Pesky touch screens
While eReaders may be lighter and easier to handle if you suffer from a hand or wrist injury, using one with a touch screen can be a pain if dropped. Dropping a book in the middle of reading and losing your place can be inconvenient, but you can usually find your place fairly easily. When you drop an eReader with a touch screen, and scramble to keep it from hitting the floor, touching the screen on its way down, you may spiral yourself several pages forward or backward. Having to “flip” through your eBook to locate your current page with 1 to 2 second load times is a recipe for annoyance. Tap. Wait. Scan. Tap. Wait. Scan. Tap. Wait. Scan. You can probably guess this has happened to me on more than one occasion. Also, dropping your eReader in just the wrong way can shatter a screen whereas a paperback would just bounce.
Electronics Don’t Like Water
To be fair, neither do print books, but if you drop a book in the tub while reading in the suds, you can still read it after it dries out. It may be three times larger and wrinkled, but it still functions in the manner originally intended. Not so with an eReader. Much like cellphones, once those circuits take a dip, it’s game over. Hopefully, it’s still under warranty. My suggestion is to not take them in the bath or pool, ever.
Cost
A book may run you anywhere from a few bucks to around $20, but eReaders, depending on the model and brand, can cost upwards of several hundred dollars, and you still have to pay for books on top of that.
Batteries
Print books are a pretty amazing technology. All you really need is a light source, and you’re set. Unless you’re housed in an environment where the term “lights out” is a something you can’t control (prison, summer camp, mental institution, or have no electricity), you can read whenever you wish. Not so with an eReader. Make sure you pack your charger when you leave town, and have maximum battery life when you start your trek or you might have to spend your flight talking to the person next to you.
The Learning Curve
Print books are easy to use; open and read. However, there is a bit of a learning curve for eReaders. If you ever wanted to know what else librarians do to help the public, know that they spend a great deal of time helping patrons navigate the digital world, including cellphones, eReaders, and setting up and using email. Some eReaders allow you to take notes, highlight sections, and look up words, however if you are unfamiliar with how these functions work, you can easily lose your place, and have to “flip” through the eBook looking for your spot. And considering the propitiatory nature of eReaders, each one will operate differently.
Propitiatory Branding
While there are many more apps and eReaders on the market now than at the advent of of the ebook revolution, there is still an issue with cross platform reading. Say, you buy a book for a particular reader, and in the future you decide to go with a different brand, you may not be able to port your existing library to your new device. This means you’ll have to purchase your books twice.
These last two are irritatingly capitalistic. They are what make me hate eReaders the most.
Digital Rights Management (DRM)
True, this is more of a publishing issue rather than an eReader tiff, but it has still cost me money and hours of frustration. Imagine reading a book, to have all the pages suddenly say, “To continue reading, please enter the credit card number you used to purchase this book.” WTF? Didn’t you buy the book? Why to you have to reprove this? What if it was a gift? Do I now have to ask the person who gave it to me for their credit card information? Yes. Yes, you do. Turns out with DRM, you don’t in fact own the eBooks you “purchase.” You are essentially renting them for a time from the publisher who has kept all rights to it.
I’ve purchased eBooks before that have required a third party app be to “unlocked” in order to actually read. This is completely asinine. It’s akin to buying a book that is padlocked. In order to read it, you need to go to another store, locate the key, and then unlock what you just bought. Thankfully, you only have to do this second step once, unless you live overseas with a reader and books purchased elsewhere.
Cross Border Stupidity
When I lived in Canada, DRM got on ly last nerve regarding the use of my eReader. I’d purchased the reader in the Sates, but Canada didn’t allow the use of it in the country. So there I was with a reader I couldn’t use because I couldn’t download the key necessary to open the file. So there I was, stuck with a useless digital file I’d paid for, that I couldn’t use, and couldn’t get a refund because I’d already downloaded the file. Hate the DRM. There are ways around DRM, but I will not talk about that here.
So, as you can see, my cons outnumber the pros, but they don’t outweigh them. I like my eReader and find it has some great functions and abilities. I like the lightweight nature of eReaders, the convenience of multiple titles in one spot, and the thrill of buying a new title is the same whether it’s print or digital. But all things said, I still love the simplicity of print books, and will always find a place for them in my heart and home.
