Books, Kindle, YES Sucks

This joint over at Yglesias reminded me of a late-night conversation I had a few weeks ago with some guys that are adamant that the day of most reading being done on iPods is upon us; their argument being that's the way music and movies have gone. Without trying to be a curmudgeon I balked, as to me there is a difference. The advent of the cd first allowed people to quickly skip over songs they didn't wanna hear on any one album. And now the iPod lets us skip through THOUSANDS of songs if we so choose. Within about 10 seconds, we can decide to stay with a song or skip it. A book is different - the ratio of 10 seconds to decide on a 3 minute song would be the same as, say 20 minutes for a 400-page book. To say nothing of how we generally know it takes longer for a book to start unfolding than a song does - it's not like we read as we listen to music now: "First page, first paragraph oh this sucks, NEXT book, first page, first paragraph oh this sucks, skip it, NEXT book..." and on and on. The length of time we're usually willing to give a book a chance is usually more than a commute or two into work, leaving less of a chance of a dramatic need to immediately skip to another book as you would if all of a sudden "Owner of a Lonely Heart" popped up on your iPod, for instance. Therein, I don't really see the value of breaking my eyes having to read something on a PDA so I can have hundreds of books at the ready, when I can generally carry around one book and be fairly satisfied until I can get home to my bookshelf. And in a panic, you can always grab a paper til you get home.

Of course, one day books will be obsolete. I just don't think it's as soon as some might think.