Author Steven Johnson (Mind Wide Open, Emergence, Everything Bad is Good for You, and The Ghost Map)recently wrote a great opinion piece that appeared in the April 20th edition of WSJ’s The Journal Report on the emergence of e-books and their future impact (see How the E-Book Will Change the Way We Read and Write).

Bound Books a Thing of the Past?

In this thought-provoking piece, Johnson muses about the “Aha!” moments brought about by web technology in the last decade and how the Internet has changed the way many of us consume reading material–particularly books:

“It will make it easier for us to buy books, but at the same time make it easier to stop reading them. It will expand the universe of books at our fingeritps, and transform the solitary act of reading into something far more social… it may well end up undermining some of the coreattributes that we have associated with book reading for more than 500 years.”

Indeed, the digital book revolution, which has been ehnaced by tools like Amazon’s Kindle and Google’s Book Search service, seems to be poised on the brink of a life-altering change we haven’t seen since the development of the printing press.

With vast amounts of reading material suddenly becoming available (literally) at our fingertips, are physical books going to become relics of our past–something our children and grandchildren will only experience in museums?

While moving to the digital realm no doubt makes it easier to disseminate information (look at what Wikipedia has done to print encyclopedias) which in many ways is a good thing, Johnson writes of the danger of losing what he calls “linear, deep-focus reading” to the ADHD world of email, texting and scanning short pieces on the fly.

As a writer, I agree with Johnson’s assessment that the web has forever changed the way we communicate written conversaton–and is poised to explode the available universe of information to mind-boggling proportions. Information measured in terabytes is further shrinking the world, opening us up to global conversation and business opportunity on a scale unheard of in history–but I’m not sure the e-book will spell the end of browsing in brick-and-mortar libraries and book stores any time soon.

At least I hope it won’t.

The Tactile Element

Call me old-fashioned, but I think there is something about a physical book that humans will continue to need. Johnson’s reference to the solitary experience of reading books–delving psychologically into a different world via the printed page–is something that devout readers have come to crave over the last few hundred years.

Reading a book is not only cerebral, it’s  physical  as well. No matter how “realistic” an e-book reader becomes with digital page-turning technology, it can’t hold a candle to what the human being feels when he holds a book. The weight and heft of it, the tactile sensation of fingertips holding and turning the page, the visual effect of  light on paper and ink–these physical sensations are a big part of how we enjoy the act of reading.

Reading digitally removes those physical comforts and separates the reader somewhat from the full-immersion experience, which also makes it much easier to separate from act itself. It’s much easier to break away from a screen, which has built-in distractions, than it is to tear yourself away from a printed page. You made a date with that page–a space and time to be alone with it, body and mind–a commitment that involves your entire being–not just your eyes.  Let’s face it… we’re physical beings that enjoy touch, even when we read.

I ? Books

No doubt about it, digital progress is happening at lightning speed. The opportunities it provdes for expanded learning, selling more books and reaching out to communicate across the globe are exciting… but I think humans will still hold a place in their hearts for printed works for some time to come. After all, it took us hundreds of years to develop a close physical and mental relationship with books. I don’t think we’re ready to relegate them to museums just yet.